Work Text:
September 7th.
The faint guttural hum of the city bus roars from the engines below, the unclouded light blue sky slowly lulling past with each tree and lamppost driven by blurring into an incoherent mass of color. The hefty vehicle rattles, releasing fits of shaky breath every few seconds, and the air conditioning whirs from above the head of passengers.
Shuichi’s head is pressed against the foggy window, his bookbag on the ground beside him, his phone cupped in his lap. The seven o’ clock headache of post-slumber exhaustion knots within his temples as he monotonously stares out the window, watching as he speeds past any sign of still-life around him. Sunlight spills into the vehicle through its mirrorous panes of laminated glass, providing an uncomfortable sun glare that drills itself directly into Shuichi’s fatigued eyes, prompting him to shut them in order to prevent himself from going blind. Still, the sunlight bleeds through his eyelids, and his vision is filled with red.
Riding the bus to school has always been synonymous with an extra twenty minutes of sleep for Shuichi, whose mind has been well worn by the copious hours he has spent staying up late to complete his homework. Driven by his incessant desire to study until his body burns out into charcoal, Shuichi grapples at any extra minutes he can spend with his eyes closed, his mind drifting between a state of unconsciousness and painful awareness of his surroundings. Rarely does he actually manage to fall asleep on his way to school, but he most often simply shuts his eyes and allows his mind to settle elsewhere, preoccupying his brain until his stop is announced.
Today, when the bus pulls to a stop and the driver calls out the name of his high school–Hope’s Peak, the most prestigious school one can dream of–Shuichi’s eyes snap open, his fingers grasping for the strap of his backpack, his phone nearly falling off his lap as he stands up. He shoves his phone into the pocket of his suit pants, drapes his backpack over his shoulder, and maneuvers through the congested crowd until an open door is visible.
Pushing past the crowd of strangers, Shuichi finally manages to exit the bus in time for its departure, and the fresh wind of early September rakes its tendrils through his hair. Around him, countless classmates–upperclassmen, lowerclassmen–scatter throughout the largely scaled campus, chatting amongst themselves.
Their amicable environment is not something Shuichi is familiar with.
Shuichi has never been adequate at accepting affection.
It is simply a part of his anxious nature–the predominantly hellishly-awkward side of him that renders him into a nervous wreck when presented with affection of any kind, be it words from his closest friends or even from his boyfriend. He always finds a way to stumble over his words, his sentences too short in comparison to their verbose statements, leaving him with a handful of guilt and a mind wrought with stress.
He’s never been good with words, honestly: his love language has always been gift giving. He finds it difficult to reciprocate affectionate words when his mind is constantly tousled with thoughts on how to respond. When he pries his lips open to speak, what comes out is always accompanied with an embarrassingly flustered stutter. Nothing coherent comes out of his mouth.
He has tried to improve, surely, but what good has that done? It is human nature to struggle against breaking a habitual phenomena, and with each attempt Shuichi tried to reciprocate the articulate expressions from his loved ones, he would only revert back into his initial state of severe awkwardness. It is a frustrating process, yet Shuichi only tries over and over again in order to improve his lack of social skills and emotional reciprocation.
He prepares himself to experience the same nervous blank-out today. It’s his birthday, and knowing his dominantly extroverted classmates–not to mention the loquacious social butterflies known as his Kaito and Kaede–Shuichi expects himself to be the main topic of discussion amongst the conversations in their classroom. Restless are his closest friends, but he finds some sort of fondness in their extravagant behavior.
The hallways are as crowded as usual, with the teeming abundance of students impeding Shuichi’s path toward his classroom. He gently pushes between groups of people with a whisper of an apology on his lips, his thin frame slipping past the crowd until the overhead sign–protruding from the side of the wall, above where the door of the classroom stands–with his homeroom’s number enters his line of sight.
Squeezing through a group of underclassmen, Shuichi manages to enter his classroom without any injuries. Gathered inside are a handful of his classmates, busy chatting amongst themselves with the absence of exhaustion on their faces. Shuichi is always awed by how invigorated his classmates appear in the early morning. Perhaps that is another facet of their being that differs from his.
He’s in the middle of inspecting his talking classmates–Tenko appears to be more than overjoyed describing her Aikido tournament to Himiko–when two small hands cover his eyes, a weight shifting onto him from behind with an excited squeal exuding from the person who had just ambushed him. He yelps, staggering forward as his arms reach upward to pry the pair of hands off his eyes, and he turns around to be met with Kaede’s beaming face, all bright smiles and cheerful optimism in her eyes.
“Happy birthday!” she chirps, her voice singing.
Shuichi smiles. “Ah, thank you, Kaede. You really caught me off guard there.”
She giggles. “Mission accomplished, I guess! You should’ve seen the look on your face!”
“Half my face was covered by your hands,” Shuichi points out, but his smile widens nonetheless. Somehow, conversing with Kaede has always managed to energize him, like caffeine to a restless man.
Kaede gives him a friendly shove on the shoulder. “Anyways, I got you a gift. I know how much you were dying to get your hands on this true crime documentary, so I bought the CD for you!”
She unzips her pastel pink backpack, digging around within its contents and pulling out a slim, black colored CD case with a printed cover glued on the front. Upon seeing the CD, Shuichi’s eyes widened with excitement, a lopsided grin rising onto his face with bubbling happiness boiling within his body. He gratefully accepts the gift with open hands, bashfully smiling and thanking Kaede with a string of incoherent appreciation tripping over his lips.
“Thank you so much,” his body heats up as he hugs the CD case close to his chest. “I really appreciate this.”
His words are impinged by nervous wavers, stumbling about with stutters, but Kaede beams all the same.
“No problem!” A spark of joy ignites her eyes as her lips part into a smile.
Upon hearing the commotion, several of Shuichi’s other classmates gather around him with smiles adorning their faces, inundating him with birthday wishes and pats on the back. He can only shly accept the attention with embarrassment evident in each unfinished, unwieldy sentence that comes from his mouth. With each birthday wish from his classmates, who begin to grow in number as they file into the classroom, Shuichi can feel his social skills tumble.
When Kaito enters the classroom, carrying with him his usual boisterous aura, Shuichi mentally prepares himself for a barrage of positivity, even out matching Kaede in her seemingly unparalleled optimism. The moment the tall, purple haired boy steps into the room, a radiating tenor exudes from his frame, his broadly set grin already spilling with buoyancy. Next to him stands Shuichi’s other close friend, Maki, who holds two paper gift bags in her thin hands.
The impact of Kaito’s hand patting his back strikes Shuichi too instantly, and he staggers forward from the unexpected contact. The CD in his hands nearly flies out of his grasp, and he hastily collects himself before glancing up at Kaito with a sheepish smile.
“Happy birthday, bro!” Kaito greets, as bright as morning. “Today’s gonna be a great day, yeah?”
“Y-yeah,” Shuichi replies, his eyes shifting over to Maki. “Is that–uh, are those gifts?”
“Of course!” Kaito responds before Maki can say so herself, grabbing the gift bags and eagerly shoving them in Shuichi’s hands. The bags’ weight cave in his hands. “Maki Roll and I spent a long time trying to think of a gift for you, so we hope you like it!”
Maki crosses her arms. “Don’t open it until you get home.”
Shuichi nods. “Alright, then. Thank you guys so much.”
“No problem!” Kaito ruffles the hair at the crown of Shuichi’s head, his ahoge tangling in the process. “What are you plannin’ to do today, bro?”
Shuichi gingerly sets down his gifts on his laminated desk, carefully stashing Kaede’s CD in one of the bags Kaito and Maki had given him. “I’m actually not sure…I think Kokichi said he had something special planned for us to do today.”
“Aw, that’s great!” Kaede chirps from his left. “That’s so sweet of him!”
“I didn’t take him for the type to plan things out,” Maki comments, raising an eyebrow. “He’s the type to steal one of your belongings and give it back to you as a joke.”
Shuichi shakes his head, his eyes adrift as they wander toward the entrance of the classroom, expectancy weighing in his gaze as he waits for Kokichi’s appearance. “He may act like that on the surface, but he always has something planned. It’s his nature, I assume. He likes to think about everything step by step.”
“Always the complex thinker, I see,” Kaede nods slowly. “Well, I hope whatever he has planned for you is good! You deserve something nice on your birthday.”
“Ah, t-thank you,” Shuichi stumbles over his words again, his fingers anxiously fiddling with a stray string of fabric protruding from the interior of his suit’s sleeve. “But really, it’s just a normal day…”
“Nope!” Kaede jabs a finger at him accusingly. “I don’t wanna hear any of that! Today is your day, Shuichi, and you should have fun!”
Shuichi feels himself shrink into the palms of his hands, his skin increasing with temperature with every new pair of eyes glancing his direction. “K-Kaede, please quiet down a little…”
But Kaede, as always, did not listen. Instead, her ramblings only intensified, with Kaito soon joining her in their barrage of compliments directed toward Shuichi, who can only stare blankly at the ground in order to prevent his gaze from intertwining with anyone else’s, his cheeks baking like coal beneath an open flame. Restless are his limbs, who twitch as he imbibes the overbearingly enthusiastic atmosphere with tiresome exhaust nestled in his head.
He is uncertain how many minutes have passed before he feels a pair of small, bony, familiar hands grab either side of his face, cupping his crimson cheeks with a warm touch.
He jolts, glancing upward to meet eye-to-eye with the only person he can maintain eye contact with.
“Good morning, Shumai!” Kokichi sings with a laugh evident in his voice. He holds out a hand toward Shuichi, beckoning him to take it. “Happy birthday!”
Shuichi takes Kokichi’s hand without hesitation. “T-thank you, Kokichi.”
“Are your fans giving you a hard time with their undying devotion?” Kokichi grins childishly. Shuichi takes notice of the endearing way his purple bangs elegantly frame his refined face, all large doe eyes and rounded cheeks. “Geez, they’re crazy!”
“We are not,” huffs Kaito, who breaks apart the two boys by shoving himself between them. He flashes Shuichi a smile, his back facing Kokichi. “Don’t listen to him, bro. We’re just here to support you!”
“It’s really not a big deal…” Shuichi continues, moving to the side in order to grasp onto Kokichi’s hand again. It fits perfectly in his hands, small and welcoming, providing a sense of safety amidst the untamed attention. “Kokichi, you told me yesterday that you had something planned for us to do today?”
Kokichi blinks, attempting to recall. “Ohh, you’re right! I totally forgot about that! I promised I would propose to you today, right?”
“What?” Shuichi instantly fumbles, his cheeks marveling in sweltering embarrassment. “Y-you never said anything like that!”
“Of course,” Kokichi snickers, leaning on the tip of his toes in order to propel his height, just enough for him to tousle Shuichi’s hair. “Maybe after graduation. I actually planned a special date tonight. I heard you wanted to visit that new bookstore that just opened in the next town over, so how about we go there after school today?”
There’s a wave of surprise that flares inside Shuichi’s veins. A humming surge of excitement flickers within his organs, and his churning adoration swells exponentially as his body burns with replenished fondness. An amorous emotion buried inside his heart that bursts at the weakening seams, breaking through the tendrils in order to cultivate a shred of freedom. His body heats with a blistering breath, and his heartbeat crescendos in his ears like an incessantly obstinate orchestra.
It’s the little things, he tells himself. The little things that are truly capable of exuding the most poignant emotion.
He’d mentioned the new book store in passing, and his heart melts at the fact that Kokichi still remembers. Still carries the small detail with him.
Feeling his adoration for Kokichi incinerate each pore of his body, Shuichi gingerly steps forward and carefully wraps his arms around Kokichi’s small frame, pulling him close to his body until their heartbeats barely graze one another. The beat lull in unison: synchronized symphony that sings in soundless tranquility.
Kokichi slightly staggers, yet he eases into the embrace with a grin atop his face. He leans back into Shuichi’s chest, allowing the taller boy to rest his chin on the crown of his head.
“Aw, Shuichi must really love me, huh?” Kokichi teases. Shuichi doesn’t answer him. He simply hums in response.
He allows his gratitude to be channeled through his embrace. His nonverbal communication seems to be received by Kokichi, whose grin only widens as he sways back and forth gently. The two of them stay within their comfortable embrace until the bell rings for first period, yet a fervor still intently burns inside Shuichi’s chest, like an open flame beneath an overcast of sunlight. Feverish infatuation, smiling with invigorated ardor.
Perhaps he is not the most articulate in verbally conveying his emotions, but he can surely converse through his touch.
He figures that is enough.