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Among the people in PK academy who knew Saiki Kusuo, all of them were very concerned. He was recognized simply for his cold, emotionless exterior, and no one really expected any other behavior from him. So it was an absolute shock when it happened.
It started with Hairo. Hairo was a man of boundless energy, and it was odd to see him not in the process of doing something. At the time, he had been sitting down on the floor and staring intently at the book in his hands. Despite his normal athletic-ness, Hairo was just as determined to get studying in when he could. It was a lunch break during school, so there were occasionally familiar faces that made their way past him as he sat there. Saiki, however, stopped next to the boy.
He was silent as ever, so Hairo didn’t think much of it, simply giving the boy a, “Hey, Saiki!” and returning to his books. He expected, at this point, for Saiki to lose interest and move to his desk. Imagine his surprise when the pink-haired boy didn’t leave, instead choosing to sit down next to Hairo without saying a word. Slightly confused, Hairo turned to him, asking, “You need something, Saiki?” Saiki shook his head as a response.
Hairo shrugged before reading his book, figuring that Saiki would say if there was something important happening. The silence between them lasted for the next few minutes, with Hairo reading while Saiki continued to… stare into space. However, Hairo froze when he felt a weight on his shoulder. What? Hairo looked quizzically at the pink head of hair that was rested on his shoulder.
Apparently, Hairo wasn’t the only one alarmed, seeing as several classmates stopped to stare in bewilderment at the boy. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that Saiki was fast asleep. In class. Sleeping on a person. In the least Saiki Kusuo way possible. Hairo momentarily wondered if the boy was Saiki at all, or if he had been replaced with some kind of doppelganger.
The confusion lasted some minutes until the bell rang, waking the boy. He blinked tiredly before picking himself up and wordlessly getting back to his seat. When asked later about his actions from earlier, Saiki gave whoever asked a blank look before continuing to do whatever he was doing. People eventually just stopped asking.
A few days passed, and the commotion died down. Most people just assumed it was a weird day and moved on with their lives. Teruhashi privately hoped that she would receive similar treatment at some point. Aiura seemed to agree. Saiki acted normally for the next few days, and Hairo was almost convinced that he’d dreamed it.
Until it happened again. Toritsuka had found himself standing next to Saiki’s desk at school one morning. Saiki listened to the boy talk about his experiences from the day before, occasionally tossing in a remark or two. It was a completely normal conversation for the two of them. But then, Toritsuka stopped talking. When the students in the room looked over to investigate, they found Toritsuka staring in concern as his friend leaned onto him.
Even Nendo, who had just walked in, recognized the oddness of the situation. He walked over, poking at his “best buddy” and leaning over to look at his face from an uncomfortably close distance. Silence filled the room while the man poked and prodded quietly. With this investigation finished, Nendo turned to address the rest of the class. “I think he’s sleeping,” Nendo announced, and Toritsuka let out an exasperated sigh that matched that of the rest of the witnesses.
“Yeah, obviously,” he muttered, poking experimentally at the silent psychic. He was more concerned with how the boy chose to catch his Z’s. Suddenly falling asleep near so many people was a rare occurrence for the guy, and he had never fallen asleep on someone before. At least, not while Toritsuka was present.
“You know,” Teruhashi started, holding her chin in her hand. All the attention went to her. “He did this to Hairo the other day.” I guess I’m not the first person he took a nap on. Wait, Hairo? Toritsuka stared incredulously at the pink head of hair leaned onto his stomach. Are you really Saiki?
People started to murmur in agreement with the class beauty’s statement. Several people piped up with their thoughts on the situation. Some people suggested that he may be sleep deprived, and while that was definitely a good thought, Toritsuka couldn’t think of a reason for Saiki to lose sleep.
The discussion ended when the boy in question woke up suddenly, moving into an upright position and furrowing his brows at the desk in front of him. The teacher walked into the class and Toritsuka was forced to leave. The same thing happening twice in the same year was certainly concerning, but there wasn’t much one could do about it.
Toritsuka, for the most part, decided to not talk about the whole thing, seeing as Saiki didn’t try to bring it up himself. Although, after that, he kept a lookout for any future oddities. At the time that he decided this, Saiki gave him a confused look that was ignored in favor of Toritsuka’s determination to help.
However, Toritsuka, despite all of his internal promises, was not present the next time it happened. During P.E. a week later, Nendo’s team, who consisted of himself, Hairo, Takahashi, Saiki, and some other kids, won a volleyball match. Excited about their win, Nendo pulled his best buddy into a hug. Normally, the boy would have quietly tried to extract himself from the man.
Instead, he fell limp in Nendo’s embrace, causing everyone to panic. Nendo, confused, pulled the boy back to see what was happening. Saiki’s eyes were shut and he appeared to be unconscious. Hairo yelled at Nendo, convinced that he had crushed the psychic to death in his attempted hug.
Some classmates came forward to investigate. It was confirmed that he was still breathing and appeared to be asleep. Having seen him falling asleep in such situations two times before, people quickly realized what had happened. Saiki was carried to the nurse’s office. When he came out, he ignored the questions from his classmates and went through the rest of the school day in silence.
Now that the news had spread that Saiki had now passed out three times, his friends began to genuinely worry. Clearly, these sudden moments where he used someone as a pillow were by no means voluntary. That meant that something was wrong.
So, starting the next day, someone was always by Saiki. The group couldn’t be there with him the whole day, so they set up shifts for at least one person to be near him at all times. At the end of the day, Saiki was walked home by Nendo and/or Kaidou before they all met up behind the school to discuss anything to worry about.
Everything seemed normal with him, however. No matter how much they observed, poked, and prodded, they couldn’t find out what had happened. He continued to use the people around him as a pillow, though. It happened once more to Nendo, once to Kaidou, and even once to Kuboyasu, who had looked both puzzled and terrified at the same time.
It didn’t seem to be anything dangerous, so the crew finally gave up on stopping it from happening. Teruhashi, who had finally given up on waking him after he was found sleeping across Aiura’s back, pouted while no one was looking. For every time he was asleep on someone, she always wondered when it would be her turn.
Okay, so maybe she had pulled his antennae out of his head one time. She hadn’t thought about it, but only thinking of the boy being comfortable while sleeping. But it was an honest mistake, and she hadn’t realized he would be so upset about it, seeing as she wasn’t stealing it.
So why was it, that despite all her acts of genuine kindness and love, that Saiki didn’t ever end up asleep on her? She pulled her lips back into a friendly smile before the others saw her frown. She had tried to be near him as often as possible so that she could get him to use her as a pillow, for once.
It didn’t seem to matter since he never once slept while being near her. It frustrated her to no end, but it wasn’t like she could ask him to sleep on her. Tired of thinking about it, Teruhashi walked out of the room to continue on with her day. She had to force herself not to grumble as she walked through the halls of the school.
Checking the 18 texts from her brother, Teruhashi wondered if the day would ever come where Saiki would give her a chance. This was stopped when some fans came around the corner and she was forced to smile and chat. Oh, well. She could wait a little longer.
Saiki was awoken from his “nap” by the bell, frowning in confusion. Aiura said something to him flirtily and he glared at her, making her get up and move to her seat. When the teacher settled the class down, he spent the rest of the period glaring at his desk. It happened again. I need to find out what’s causing it.
Many people would be surprised to hear Saiki’s thoughts right now if they could. Despite all the question dodging and emotionless responses to waking up on top of someone, he had no clue what was happening either. Every time it happened, he would feel a wave of exhaustion and would find himself unable to stop the oncoming nap. Where he woke up was the least of his worries, seeing as he was certain that there was someone else causing it.
Walking towards the shoe lockers, Kusuo listened in on any mental conversations that may hint towards who was causing it. While there certainly were some evil plots being thought of, none of them had to do with his situation. He’d deal with those people later.
He stared down his shoe locker. His school was the safest one around, and he knew that because he was the reason it was so safe. Murder, natural disasters, and kidnapping were always stopped long before anyone would know about it. He’d been using these kinds of situations to strengthen his powers and had even gone to Kusuke the other day to- Oh.
Suddenly things started to make sense. But before Kusuo could get irritated enough to deal with things himself, he felt a familiar wave of exhaustion pass through him.
Teruhashi had walked over to Saiki, who had been staring at his locker for the last few minutes. She hopped between him and the metal, smiling. This would be her moment to catch his attention.
“Saiki!” She greeted him sweetly, not breaking her facade even as he gave her a blank stare back. “You’ve been staring into thin air for a while now. Can you see ghosts now?” she joked. That expression on his face didn’t even waver. She frowned.
“Saiki, are you oka-” SLAM! She froze as Saiki’s arms suddenly caged her on either side. What is he doing? She flushed when his face got closer to her and shut her eyes in anticipation. Then she felt him go limp against her. She opened her eyes to look at the unmoving body on top of her. He almost fell, but she quickly helped him stay upright. Well, sort of.
She heard him breathing quietly as he basically laid over her. The students around seemed too startled to move yet, and Teruhashi was struggling to breathe normally. Then, it hit her. Oh, wait. It’s happening to me. Unsure if she was disappointed or not, Teruhashi got to work, trying to drag Saiki to the nurse’s office until everyone got to their senses and helped her.
Saiki later woke up and teleported over to London, where his brother laughed at him before getting rid of the sleeping serum in his power regulators. The incident was not repeated, although Saiki did hear the occasional thought of those times later on. Oh well. It would go away if he couldn’t stop the volcano again this year.