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Chapter Text

If Kokichi could choose between sleeping eternally and not sleeping at all, he would rather become sleep-deprived.

He hates boredom. And one of the worst things for a person who hates boredom is to see the same dream every night. Dark-blue hair, always smooth and neatly brushed. Hazel eyes surrounded by long thick eyelashes, resembling rays of sunshine on childish drawings. A pale face, usually wearing a tired expression. Big hands with cold, long fingers that shook lightly from time to time. A slim and tall body that carried a disgustingly bitter smell of coffee, and a black jacket that smelled like books.

For so many years, each and every night, Ouma has been meeting the same person in his sleep.

***

The first time he saw him seemed like an eternity ago. In that dream, Kokichi found himself on a hill in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by grass that seemed a little too green and a tree that was a little too big to be realistic. He was 11 then, and the first thing his 11-year-old brain noticed was a pretty wooden swing hanging from one of the tree branches. Having nothing else to do, Ouma walked up to the tree, ready to jump on the swing and have fun, but a cold hand softly landed on his shoulder and made him stop.

“Don’t,” a shy voice mumbled against his back. “It’s broken. You’ll fall.”

He wasn’t exactly pleased by that turn of events. Ouma Kokichi, being stopped from doing what he wanted? Whoever that was, they got a lot of nerve to try and control him like that.

“How would you know?” he hissed and turned around, and that was when he first saw him.

A pretty boy wearing an ugly cap stood in front of him,  his curious gaze glued to the ground and his slim body stiff from tension. The fake sunlight danced on his faintly blushing cheeks and sprinkled them with glitter so gently that Kokichi found himself staring at the boy’s skin. For a few minutes, both of them kept quiet – the stranger was studying the grass, Ouma was studying the stranger.

Finally, the latter’s patience ran thin. He got closer to the brunette and poked him in the chest, earning a questioning look.

“Are you an angel or something?”

“I– What?”

The boy winced, his cap almost falling off from the sudden motion.

“I’m not an angel.” He made such an adorably stupid face that Kokichi barely held a giggle. “I’m Saihara Shuichi.”

Saihara Shuichi. That name bounced in his head like a toy ball. It didn’t sound familiar, like a name of a fictional character or anyone Ouma knew. Seemed strange, but the boy didn’t let it bother him since he knew how wild his imagination could get. Besides, Saihara Shuichi’s innocent attitude was less boring than some swing on a pathetic tree, so Kokichi decided to mess with him a little more. Like a tiger in a circus ring, he started circling around the other boy and examining him with a look worthy of a serious scientist.

“Isn’t that what angels are called, usually?” he hummed. “I’ve always been told angels had your name.”

“You have? By who?” visibly confused, Saihara Shuichi tried to keep up with him, but to no avail. “I-I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“My, my! I’ve heard all angels are a little modest and would never admit who they are, but I didn’t expect them to be so bad at lying!”

Kokichi loved to be overwhelming and confusing, so he didn’t hold back. Before the poor boy could react, he snatched his cap and sprinted towards the swing. For a few moments, he could’ve sworn he felt a light breeze play in his hair as he was running.

“Hey, I’m not lying!” Saihara Shuichi’s voice got louder and less shy but still lacked enough confidence to stop his mischievous acquaintance. “Give it back! It’s mine!”

It’s my dream, Kokichi thought, smirking to himself, so nothing belongs to some strangers here. As soon as his knees hit the wooden plank, the boy jumped, landing right on it like a poorly made paper plane.

“You’re wrong, Saihara Shuichi! This world is mine! I am the–”

Sadly, his triumphal remark was cut off as the swing creaked under his light body and his ass hit the ground. The fall was painful, the ground was cold, the oversaturated grass was tickling his arms. Everything was sensible, vivid, and suspiciously realistic. A surprised gasp slipped from Ouma’s lips, while in the distance, getting closer and closer, Saihara’s disappointed sigh shook the still colorful air.

“See? I told you it would break, s-silly,” he grumbled. Soon enough his tall silhouette appeared in front of confused Kokichi; the look in his eyes was much warmer than the condescending tone of his voice. “Are you hurt? Let me help you.”

Ouma would’ve come up with a witty comeback to make sure he’d never be called “silly” again, but the sight in front of him made his mind go blank. It looked like a picture from some sappy romance visual novel. Saihara stood there with his hand outstretched towards the fallen boy, his head covered the sun like a solar eclipse, and his hair was flapping in the breeze with cinematically slow speed. It was only then when Kokichi noticed,

“You look much better without your stupid hat.”

The boy winced yet again.

“Do I?”

He did. And that wasn’t the only fascinating thing Kokichi noticed about him. He also spotted the faint blush on his cheeks getting brighter and how his phenomenally long eyelashes fluttered lightly, catching the bits of sunlight in-between. These details clicked in his racing heart and made it throb and tingle in a weirdly excited manner – a feeling that he had never experienced before. He rushed to get up before anything unexpected popped up in his already busy head.

Maybe Saihara was an angel, after all.

“You don’t. You look ugly.” Kokichi shoved the hat into his arms. “Put this back on before I cry blood!”

“You’re rude,” the other boy muttered, following the order.

“I know! That’s what I’m told all the time!”

Saihara didn’t answer immediately, the shade from his cap making his face look less adorable than before.

“And… maybe I’m told I’m ugly all the time,” he forced out, tensing up. “I don’t know about you, but it hurts my feelings sometimes.”

These words went straight to Kokichi’s chest and echoed there, revealing the cold emptiness he felt inside. He stopped, dropping the smug expression, and blinked a few times in pure confusion. This boy? Ugly? He was definitely a subject of Ouma’s imagination, then. There was absolutely no way anyone could call Shuichi ugly in the real world.

Unsure of what to say, the shorter boy pouted and rolled his eyes. No matter what, he needed to keep his cool attitude to assert dominance. “Well, I lied. Duh! I wouldn’t say you’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever met, but I called you an angel for a reason.”

Their conversation felt like a game of catch: throwing words back-and-forth, causing strong and curious reactions every time. It wasn’t as boring as Kokichi’s pointless talks with his dumb classmates.

“T-thank you,” Saihara’s nervous chuckle made him flinch. The sound of his voice was so calming that Kokichi imagined how good it would’ve felt to listen to him read something out loud. “But, uh, I don’t even know what to call you. You haven’t told me your name yet.”

Telling his name to a random boy from a dream? Ouma didn’t feel like doing such reckless things. He would rather make a menacing first impression than friends.

“I don’t think you want to know something like that, Saihara-chan.” He stretched his lips in a Cheshire cat smile and pressed a finger against them.

In the corner of his eye, he noticed how the bright sky and colorful grass slowly started fading away. The dream was probably coming to an end, so he had very little time to disappear dramatically from Saihara’s sight before they would never meet again. At moments like this, lots of fun ideas and evil quotes from his favorite manga would usually pop up in his head, but nothing seemed to work in his favor in that dream.

Meanwhile, Saihara noticed the changes, too.

“Why not?” he looked around with a panicked gasp. “And why is the world–”

Without thinking, he grabbed Kokichi by his hand with the desperation of a drowning person. As soon as he did that, Ouma’s body jerked lazily, regaining consciousness, and he accidentally blinked the other boy away. The world disappeared in a flash; he was back in his boring room, the grey ceiling instead of the blue sky and the dusty floor instead of green grass.

Saihara didn’t even finish the sentence. How unfortunate and lame.

Kokichi felt so lightheaded and weak as if his body lingered in that dream world. That feeling never disappeared. For the whole day, he couldn’t stop thinking about the weird boy, his face printed in his memory a little too well for something he’d forget in a couple of days. Such interesting personas had rarely visited his childish dreams, so it was a shame he couldn’t mess around with that guy anymore.

…Or so he thought, until, next time he fell asleep, the first thing he was greeted with was the same exact face, every feature unchanged, and the familiar hand outstretched to him again.

“O-oh.”

They were in a classroom this time, gentle sunlight pouring on empty desks and closed books, the same breeze playing with the cheap curtains through an opened window. The infamous ugly hat was covering Shuichi’s confused face before his amber eyes lit up under it. Kokichi blinked a few times, trying to process what was happening, but no reasonable answer came to his panicking mind.

“So, um,” even the calming voice sounded similar to the one he’d heard in the first dream. “You didn’t tell me your name last time.”

Ouma’s surprised stare dropped to the other boy’s spread palm that was still persistently demanding a handshake. “Well, looks like we’re stuck together,” he mumbled pensively. “If that’s the case, then…”

Their hands locked together in a firm grip. Shuichi’s fingers were cold but smooth, shyly brushing against Kokichi’s skin all covered in goosebumps. Each feeling was just as clear and vivid as if they were meeting in real life, but that didn’t make any sense. Despite the anxious thoughts filling his sleeping head, the shorter boy managed to put on his usual wide smile and straighten his back.

“I’m Ouma Kokichi! The very subject of your fantasies, aren’t I?”

Shuichi blushed again. “Nice to meet you then, Ouma-kun.”

That’s how it all began.

Kokichi hasn’t been able to dream of anyone else since.

***

If he could choose between sleeping eternally and not sleeping at all, he would rather become sleep deprived. But that might be a lie.

Growing up with a guy in your dreams is like having a real childhood friend. Even when you argue or threaten each other to leave, you’re still put back together as though by stubborn parents or teachers – well, in this case, it feels more like something as pathetic and unrealistic as fate. Kokichi wants to whine and complain about it, but at the same time, there hasn’t been a single day he wouldn’t wish to fall asleep as soon as possible.

They could meet anywhere, whether it was a futuristic city with flying cars, a pirate ship, a made-up country full of magical animals, or another planet with hostile aliens trying to murder them. It’s like watching a series that changes drastically with every episode to keep things entertaining. Kokichi can never predict where he and Saihara would end up, and it makes his life unbelievably thrilling. It also provides good company; as much as he hates to admit it, Shuichi isn’t that bad of a partner for every adventure they’re forced into.

They could become friends if he were real. Maybe. Hypothetically speaking. Though Kokichi believes they both would be acting much more boring in real life, without all these exciting scenarios and alternative universes. This world could never top anything they have to go through on a nightly basis.

Today, for example, they were lost in a haunted forest full of weird, scary creatures. The dead trees were falling with awfully loud cracking sounds, the skies were dark and the wind was strong, pairs of eyes, glowing bloody red, were watching them from every pitch-black corner… Ouma doesn’t consider himself a coward, but if he had to tell the truth (which, to be fair, rarely happens), he’d say he was pretty goddamn scared. The ominous atmosphere filled his body with dread and made it shiver; he kept instinctively hiding behind Shuichi’s tall figure or pressing against him, cracking jokes and trying to cover up with the most awkward, ridiculous lies he could ever come up with.

And Shuichi didn’t seem to mind.

He also acted scared and cautious, wincing, jolting, and yelping at every little sound, but never hesitated to tug his protégé closer or help him hide. Each time his shaking cold hands cautiously wrapped around Kokichi’s scrawny figure, the shorter boy felt weird lightness in his lungs that surprisingly calmed him down a bit.

At some point, a crazy beast jumped at them out of nowhere, and they had to fight – both with their anxiety and the roaring monster. Its enormous claws and scary teeth were blinding in the pitch-black world; it looked like it could kill with one fast movement of its paw.

Kokichi wasn’t afraid of dying. It was his dream, after all. Any injury he’d get would disappear as soon as his eyes would open. However, a different fear struck his head like a fallen tree.

Shuichi could die. Others always die in dreams.

Surprisingly, that was all it took for him to get riled up. He swallowed the overwhelming fear and chose to fight. Having pushed his sidekick aside, he launched at the beast with a desperate scream. The little warrior mimicked sounds the beast was making, never held back with clumsy attacks and curse words, moving as fast and sly as he could to take it by surprise. The world lit up red from all the fury he was feeling, shapes of trees and bushes mixing into one big mass that felt as tight and narrow as a closet or a cupboard drawer. When the giant claw scratched Kokichi’s arm, a flash of pain paralyzed his body and blurred his vision. He could feel a warm streak of blood pouring down his shirt. A panicked scream escaped his widely opened mouth without him noticing.

“Ouma-kun!”

Fainting in a dream would’ve been a peculiar experience, but before he could fall limp on the ground, familiar cold hands dragged him away from the battlefield – right into the pitch-black nothingness that was supposed to be the end of the setting.

“Ouma-kun, can you hear me?! Are you okay?”

The same hands wrapped around Kokichi’s waist, and soon enough, he ended up nuzzling into Shuichi’s pounding chest. He could feel the other’s racing heartbeat pumping through the layers of clothes, and it felt so real and warm as if they weren’t in a dream at all.

“Why did you act so careless?” a worried whisper burned his ear. “You could’ve died.”

“I can’t die,” Ouma refuted weakly. “I’m immortal here.”

“Let’s not check if it’s true or not. I’m gonna take care of your arm now, okay?”

Once Kokichi backed away, he finally saw Saihara’s face. Two golden eyes were shining like two suns lost in a black hole, so frightened and worried and caring. Slightly parted lips were stained with ruby teeth marks he left just now in a panic. The half-relieved, half-anxious expression was decorating his blushing, sweaty face. Messy hair was sticking to his wet forehead.

This boy was unrealistically pretty. Definitely a subject of Ouma’s dreams.

And he got even prettier when he tore off a part of his sleeve, making a classy white shirt look like a cheap dirty cloth now, and rolled up the other. There was something heart-stopping about him not being as neat and pedantic about his looks as usual. Kokichi was too stunned to process what he was doing; before he knew it, the other boy carefully grabbed his injured arm with a quiet sigh and started bandaging the wound.

“You shouldn’t be so reckless, Ouma-kun,” he mumbled gently. “Even if you’re sure you won’t… die, you can still get hurt. See?”

Consciousness slowly began to sink back into Kokichi’s weakened body. He blinked away the wooziness and followed Shuichi’s concentrated gaze, watching him tend to his wound with confident, fast movements.

“I got so riled up, I couldn’t stop myself!” he whined, trying to sound carefree. “I just loooove battles, you know? I always enjoy them in video games and stuff!”

Their eyes met. Shuichi gave him a look worthy of a condescending parent, then let out a relieved chuckle. “This isn’t a video game, though.”

“Well, considering we’re sitting somewhere at the end of the map, it sure feels like one!”

“True. I figured we could technically go anywhere, unlike those creatures, so…”

Kokichi couldn’t tell if it was dreaminess or the aftermath of his fierce battle, but Shuichi’s eyes were too easy to drown in and his voice sounded more calming than a lullaby. He was losing consciousness again, getting lost in the other’s presence, absorbed and fascinated by it. For some reason, Saihara also wouldn’t move, so they ended up staring at each other awkwardly, surrounded by deadly silence and the same gloomy darkness.

“Please never do this again. I, uh– I’m afraid of losing you here, Ouma-kun,” Shuichi whispered, his shaky breath tickling Kokichi’s nose. The shorter boy felt shivers run down his suddenly stiff back.

“I was protecting you, idiot.” Oops. “That’s a lie, though.”

Saihara chortled, a small and tender smile now playing on his lips.

“Of course. A liar till the end.”

The injury was treated. The beast was gone. The bleeding had stopped. Yet, they kept staring into each other’s eyes, still ridiculously close, and Shuichi’s hands were still gripping Kokichi’s arm.

They didn’t let go or move away until the dream ended.

And even now, sitting in this boring class, Kokichi can still feel Shuichi’s cold fingers gently brushing against his forearm.

It makes him all dreamy and absent-minded. However, as much as he hates the state he’s in, he can’t stop suppressing the smile that persistently tries to stretch his lips. It feels oddly familiar to the one he saw on Shuichi’s face before he disappeared, as if an exact replica of it.

“Why did you act so careless? You could’ve died.”

“Even if you’re sure you won’t… die, you can still get hurt. See?”

“I’m afraid of losing you here, Ouma-kun.”

Has it always been so hot in the classroom? Kokichi’s head spins, but before he can do anything about it, he receives a quick hit right on it with a crumbled notebook.

“Oi, twink!” a familiar irritating voice breaks through the memories of Shuichi’s tender one. “Wanna hang out with me and Idabashi The Teacher’s Pet tonight? There’s a new movie coming out, and the lead actor is so hot!”

Iruma Miu, a rather vulgar girl who (unfortunately) ended up being Ouma’s classmate and friend, appears near his desk. As her strong perfume fills the air, Kokichi’s dreaminess immediately changes into fury. She fills the whole space with her loud, even screaming presence, leaving no place for anyone or anything else. Kokichi sighs loudly, giving his friend an icy glare, and snatches the notebook out of her manicured hand with a forced sneer.

“What a coinkydink! I’m spending the night with that lead actor today! Can’t go.”

Iruma snorts. “You look like a fifth grader that ate glue, you’ll never get laid.”

“You’re the one to talk, dumb piglet!”

Another disappointed sigh escapes Kokichi’s lips, and he turns away. If only he could blink the real world away, just like he always does with the one where Shuichi is…

He glances at the window above his desk. The weather outside is as boring as ever and the air smelled like rain when he was walking here. People go in and out, wearing the same-looking monotonous uniforms and tedious faces. Their tired eyes have lost colors and can never be as radiant and appealing as the ones Kokichi stares into every night. Their smiles feel fake and strained, even the widest ones, and their laughs sound forced. People are nothing but empty shells, moving around with no passion or purpose in this uneventful world.

What’s the fun in being a part of it?

“Hellooo?” Miu bends over, empathically puffing out her still-growing chest. “Come on Ouma, you’re the only one who can trick upperclassmen to buy us tickets!”

Oh, he would gladly do that any other time. He gets all kinds of perks and pocket money for his perfect manipulation skills. However, today his head has been too preoccupied with the recent dream to think of tricks.

“I’m not your trick machine for seeing adult movies, piss off!” he shoves his classmate away, not even trying to hide his anger. The girl whistles.

“Gremlin’s moody today!” a doubtful giggle tickles her messy fair hair. “Did something happen?”

“Iruma-chan appeared nearby. Wanna make me happier and leave?”

Iruma lets out a disappointed sigh and leaves, twirling the air with her mini skirt. It almost feels like the light breeze from the dreams, the one that always appears once Shuichi is around.

If only he could be around here, too.

Kokichi shrugs off his gloominess and tries to muffle these thoughts. He’s only a few hours away from another dream.

***

If he could choose between sleeping eternally and not sleeping at all, he would rather pick a fixed and healthy sleep routine.

Even his aloof father has pointed out that he looked healthier and slept more than before, wondering what drove his son to have such a consistent timetable out of the blue. Like a perfect, well-behaved child, Kokichi goes to sleep at 9 or 10 pm without anyone forcing him to. He rushes to finish everything before it’s too late in the evening and spends most of his time in his room, quiet. As much as he hates being perceived as an obedient goodie-goodie, he doesn’t mind being seen as one if it means no one will get in his way to meet Shuichi. Just another easy-peasy lie to keep up with.

It’s been almost five years. He’s pretty much used to living like this for now.

Every day, as soon as it gets dark, he jumps in his bed, dives under the covers, and waits excitedly until his eyes close and his mind carries him somewhere far, far away, to the world where Shuichi lives. They always end up in fascinating adventures that go beyond even Kokichi’s wild imagination, so he never gets bored. Dreams became his only joy in this dull ordinary life.

He doesn’t know much about Shuichi. They’re always busy figuring out another fictional world, its rules, enemies and allies. He’s only aware that Shuichi’s Uncle works in a detective agency and he sometimes keeps his nephew busy with small cases. He also figured out a few hobbies of his – boring, ordinary, like reading novels or playing chess – and his favorite color, blue. Which is also so obvious that it’s boring. Kokichi has no idea why he feels so drawn to him, but the more nights they spend together, the safer and lighter he feels around this shy boy with his stupid, ugly hat that he never takes off.

Maybe there’s something about the way he looks at Kokichi with those pretty amber eyes of his. Maybe there’s something about his voice, changing slightly with each emotion, but always soothing, calming, soft. Maybe it’s all because of his stupid random thoughts and ideas that never fail to save them from difficult situations. Maybe it’s just his ramblings about another dumb case he took or a novel he read. Or all of these combined.

Kokichi, however, is convinced that he’s simply impressed by how far his imagination went, having created such a complex, realistic character and keeping him in his dreams for so long. Sometimes silly guesses cross his mind – what if Shuichi is a real person, and they share dreams every night? – but he thinks it’s nothing but a stretch since it sounds too bizarre. Either way, he’s just happy to indulge in all of these crazy fantasies and spend his nights in the most interesting ways.

Today isn’t any exception. He waits until nighttime, gets in bed, falls asleep…

And wakes up covered in a cold sweat, panic shaking his still sleeping body.

Shuichi wasn’t there.

The dream was empty. Kokichi was taken to a random street full of grey silhouettes but there was no sight of his companion. He tried to find him, looking everywhere he could, entering deserted shops and cafés and taking countless turns in all directions.

Shuichi wasn’t there. Shuichi wasn’t there. Shuichi wasn’t there.

It was the first time in a while he felt genuinely terrified. His whole body kept shaking while he wobbled around the same-looking buildings and shouted Shuichi’s name until his throat started to hurt. Tears were burning his cheeks and streaming down his chin, so tangible and real – and so was the emptiness he felt, both in that lifeless place and in his shattering chest.

“Saihara-chan! Are we playing hide-and-seek?” he was desperately trying to sound like his usual self, but his faltering voice didn’t help in the slightest. “This isn’t fun for me at all, just so you know!”

No response came. Only the echo of his own screams lingered in the heavy air, so cold and humid that it smelt like death.

“I didn’t agree to play this! How can a game that you’re forced to play… be fun?!”

Kokichi felt like he was suffocating, each breath he took filling him with more anxiety. Everything he sensed was prickly and poignant, hurt him in every part of his weak body. He got lost in that vast but monotonous universe of loneliness and despair, and there was no one to save him anymore.

Shuichi wasn’t there. Shuichi wasn’t there. Shuichi wasn’t there.

“Saihara-chan… where did you go?”

Kokichi fell on the ground without even noticing. Tears blurred his vision, ready to flood the entire street. He clenched his shirt as if trying to reach to his racing heart and tear it out of his chest, impulsively pulling and stretching the thin fabric until it ripped. Anxiety was flowing through his veins instead of blood and spinning his head to the point that everything around him became an illegible dark mess.

Kokichi was alone. Shuichi disappeared. After all those years, he suddenly stopped visiting him.

His only joy and amusement in life has perished overnight.

He wakes up because his father shakes him out of it. This is the first time Kokichi sees him with a worried expression on his always tired, indifferent face.

“Kokichi, you’ve been screaming and crying all night.”

“Ah…”

The boy blinks, secretly wishing he could travel back to the universe where Shuichi still existed, and his heart stops as soon as he realizes he might’ve lost his dream companion forever.

He’s lost for the rest of the day. Whether it’s breakfast, or a morning walk to school, or a class, or a chat with friends – Kokichi can’t find peace of mind. It feels as though he doesn’t exist there at all. His memories keep painting tender, pretty portraits of Shuichi – those beautiful eyes, soft hair, a shy smile – and all of them hurt. They hurt so much. Ouma is constantly on the verge of tears or a mental breakdown, completely absent-minded, too busy trying to replicate the world of dreams and summon the blue-haired boy while his whole body aches, too heavy to move around.

Time flies by like a tape on rewind. Before he knows it, Kokichi finds himself resting in Iruma’s gross filthy arms with Idabashi gently patting him on the shoulder.

“What the hell, Ouma?” Miu’s worried voice breaks through a humming wall in his spinning head, and he jolts. “Are you sick or something?”

“I don’t think his forehead is hot,” Kiibo states. “Isn’t he just tired?”

Oh no. Kokichi blinks a few times, feeling like he just woke up from another dream.

They’re sitting on a school rooftop, wide pale skies surrounding them from above. By the looks of it, the lessons are already over: their schoolbags are scattered on the ground with homework handouts peeking from them, and the barely visible, the cream-colored sun has moved to the west, its gentle lazy rays getting pinker. Ouma’s shivering body is covered by Kiibo’s black jacket (as if his own uniform wasn’t warm enough, jeez). Miu’s perfume has filled his burning nostrils.

Are these idiots taking care of him now? Does that mean they’ve noticed how bad he feels? Another icy wave of panic freezes the blood in his veins, and his body tenses up as he reluctantly gets out of his friend’s warm embrace, earning a confused gasp.

“Ouma?”

Exaggerating everything is his only way out. He can’t let them know he’s going through something as pathetic as a loss of a non-existent boy.

“Waaaaah! I’m so depressed and disappointed!” he drops on the ground dramatically and starts rolling back-and-forth like a cranky child. “My stupid father deleted all games from my Nintendo! I haven’t been able to eat and sleep afterward! Will you buy me new games?”

He watches with relief how the worried gazes of his friends slowly turn into annoyed ones.

“Wait, what?” Idabashi frowns suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you used your crocodile tears to make us buy you new games.”

“Didn’t you snatch that Nintendo from someone? What’s stopping you from stealing the games as well, you little twink?” Iruma’s eyes stare at Kokichi with confusion like two round icebergs. She’s still unsure of what to believe, which is dangerous. There should be no room for doubt.

Lying feels so tiring all of a sudden. With a heavy heart, Ouma squeezes out another loud scream. “I don’t wanna be a bad guy anymooooore! I wanna have my own stuff!”

“You don’t make any sense, Ouma-kun!” Kiibo’s panicked voice echoes through the wide roof space. “This is just… ridiculous! What’s going on?”

Miu snorts angrily and stomps her feet on the ground, leaving the bench. “Ugh, nothing! Don’t waste your time on this. We got tricked by his flat ass again!” she shouts, visibly disappointed, and shoots Kokichi a murderous look. “I can’t believe he managed to do something so dumb!”

“You shouldn’t have done this, we were so worried!” Kiibo follows her to the exit. “What if something happens next time and we won’t believe you anymore?”

Kokichi catches himself thinking that he’s already missing the warmth of Miu’s embrace and Idabashi’s jacket. An icy feeling of loneliness scratches his chest.

“Your loss!” he laughs hoarsely, and that’s all he can do.

The door closes, leaving him alone on the cold rooftop. It’s just like that street from the latest dream all over again. The boy groans, then rolls on his back to face the boring sky. His tired eyes desperately scan the clouds in a silly hope to find a familiar shape, and for a moment he can swear he saw an outline of Shuichi’s cap.

“Saihara-chan,” he whispers, so quiet that the sounds barely escape his lips. “Why did you leave? I don’t wanna be alone again.”

The wind blows the clouds further away.

***

Kokichi would love to stay awake, but because of his fixed sleep schedule that he kept up for years, his eyelids drop heavy and he gets thrown into a dark, bottomless space where his body feels light and his daytime thoughts drift away.

When he opens his eyes again, he sees… a bookcase. An old wooden bookcase with lots of boring books put neatly on its shabby shelves. He looks around, both confused and tired; it seems that he was teleported to a library of some sort because identical bookcases surround him, their old dusty smell burning his nostrils. The tall ceiling goes so high up that it feels like the shelves never end, trying to reach it. As Kokichi takes a cautious step forward, the echo of it flies around the room in loud, heavy layers.

An enormous library, huh. What a boring place to be alone at.

Ouma sighs, purposefully loud so that his voice fills all the space, and walks towards the nearest corner. He wonders if there’s any exit he could take to leave the dream faster. Each movement turns into a mirror-like sound reflection in the deadly silence. Step. Step. Sigh. Another step.

The more he walks, the more he realizes that the library strongly resembles a labyrinth. The bookcases turn into walls, forming narrow, complicated paths, so despite the tall walls, the space gets tighter and uncomfortable each minute. What a joke. Kokichi wishes he didn’t dream at all today. His sighs turn into worried panting, his steps become faster, his head starts spinning from seeing the same picture over and over no matter how many turns he takes. Panic slowly builds up in his chest. Sounds and echoes mix up in a weird, complicated noise that pisses him off. The boy starts feeling like he’s being followed, and there’s nowhere to run, and he can’t find an exit, and it’s so dusty that the air is nearly impossible to breathe, and he’s dizzy, and–

Cold hands grab him by his shoulders. Kokichi yelps and defensively swings his arm to hit whatever is behind him, only to slap soft skin and feel a surprised gasp burn his palm.

“Ow! It hurts!”

The familiar voice echoes loudly among the bookcases. The familiar amber eyes stare at scared Ouma with confusion. The familiar cap throws a faint shadow on the familiar face.

Familiar…

“Saihara-chan.”

The feeling of relief is unbelievably strong. It goes through Kokichi’s weakened body like a giant tsunami and washes off all fears, worries, and sorrows. His legs almost give in from the euphoric feeling that sends shivers down his spine as he stares at the lost boy, back in his dreams, and compares the concerned gaze with the one painted tenderly in his memory. For a moment, he gets scared that it’s just his mind playing tricks on him – what if, as soon as he moves, Shuichi will disappear without a trace again? – so he freezes cautiously, not daring to blink and breathe.

Saihara blinks in confusion. His long eyelashes flutter like butterfly wings.

“That was… a harsh welcome,” he forces an awkward chuckle. “You look distressed, did something happen?”

Is he playing dumb?

A million guesses run through Ouma’s sweating head. If anything, he’s known Shuichi for five years, and trying to fool Kokichi so stupidly is the last stunt he expects from him. Well, it’s not like Kokichi trusts him or something – he’s well aware how suddenly people may change and that he shouldn’t let his guard down, even in dreams. That’s simply not the case. It just… doesn’t make sense for Shuichi at all.

He keeps staring at his dream companion, mouth agape, and notices how the taller boy looks more and more confused.

“Ouma-kun?”

Okay. Kokichi mentally orders himself to calm down and straighten his back. Instead of giving in to emotions, he’ll play a detective, just like Saihara usually does.

“Where were you last night?” he smirks. “I met so many people yesterday. It was refreshing, but I was surprised not to find you among them. I even thought I finally got a better substitute.”

A flash of pain, subtle and faint, runs through Shuichi’s hazel eyes and makes them look sadder than usual. The boy fixes his cap, lowering its bill as much as possible. Even though it’s the exact reaction Kokichi wanted, a small needle of disappointment pricks his heart.

“Oh… so you were in a dream without me…”

Shuichi’s breath suddenly hitches. He covers his mouth, softly pressing his palm to his lips – the gesture he does every time he figures something out.

“Ouma-kun, are you a real person?”

“Huh?” Kokichi spits, stricken by such a dumb question. “Of course I am, I told you–”

His heart stops at the same time Saihara interrupts him. Another guess, so reasonable and logical that it makes no sense at all, comes to his mind. The thoughts he kept putting aside, never believing them, swirl inside his head like a destructive hurricane.

“I… I pulled an all-nighter yesterday. There was a lot of work at school, and my Uncle asked for help with a small case… I didn’t sleep at all.” The hazel eyes glare at Ouma with worrying solemnity. The shorter boy takes a step back impulsively and grabs onto the nearest bookshelf because his knees get weak. “Do you know what that means?”

Kokichi knows. He’s known for so long, and Shuichi probably has, too. His lungs feel weirdly light, almost weightless, and he wheezes:

“That you’re a dumb sleep-deprived idiot?” to calm down his crazily pounding heart.

This stupid remark blows away the tension as if it’s just a layer of dust. Shuichi winces, then chuckles condescendingly as his cold hands reach out to Kokichi, helping him stand upright.

“It was just one night. I took a nap during the day, but I didn’t see any dreams.”

“Of course you didn’t. Because I was wide awake, having fun with my bestest of friends!”

Without any explanation, Saihara pulls his dream companion into a tight hug. Kokichi’s nose bumps into the other’s chest while the usual scent of coffee surrounds him, changing the disgusting mucky smell of the library into something nicer. The purple-haired boy can hear Shuichi’s pounding heart through the soft fabric of his classy white shirt; it never occurred to him how apparent and realistic the sounds were, or maybe he never paid attention to Shuichi as much as to the worlds around them. Now, however, he snuggles up to his friend, ear pressed against his chest, and listens carefully, not missing a single beat, savoring every thump like a calming melody. Cold hands wrap around him and clasp on his back, long fingers start tenderly tracing his backbone.

All of these feelings, bright and lifelike, make Kokichi realize how alive and real Shuichi is. He will never go anywhere. He won’t disappear without a trace. He doesn’t depend on Ouma’s imagination or state of mind. He will always be there, waiting in their shared dreams, never leaving his side no matter where their fantasies take them.

“Trustworthy?” his mind whispers cautiously. Kokichi flinches.

Is he?...

“So you figured it out too,” a mild echo from Shuichi’s soft voice flies up to the ceiling. “Does it mean we share dreams somehow? I didn’t think it was possible.”

“Why, I knew all along because it’s totally possible!” Kokichi smirks inside his chest. “My friend also shares dreams with another guy. They got married and have dream kids now.”

A tender chortle. “Liar. Did you miss me?”

“Not at all. Last night was a nice change of pace.”

“Liar.”

“It’s not a lie! I’m telling you the truth!”

Kokichi finally lets out a laugh that isn’t forced but sincere, its melody ringing harmoniously with Shuichi’s quiet voice, and their echoes turn into a warm, loving melody. It feels like the unreachable ceiling disappears and lets the sunlight pour inside; it paints the bookcases in brighter colors, scatters glitter into the air, and the whole ominous atmosphere that kept Ouma on edge disappears.

There is no way a real person can make him feel so unrealistically at ease by simply being around.

“Um, Ouma-kun?”

Kokichi raises his eyes to meet Shuichi’s. He can see the pink blush sprinkle the young detective’s cheeks, and – for some reason – it immediately warms his heart.

“Since it’s confirmed that we’re both real people… Unless my mind is playing some very complicated tricks on me,” Saihara averts his gaze with an adorably guilty smile. “Can we… maybe… spend the rest of the night talking about each other?”

“What do you mean?” Kokichi gasps softly, raising his eyebrows. He pays attention to every little gesture and movement of his dream companion as if he examines a very important clue and notices how nervous the boy is.

“I mean, I would love to know about you and your… daily life?” Shuichi’s hand timidly reaches the bill of his hat to pull it lower. “We barely know anything about each other. And I’m… curious to know more about you. You seem like an interesting person.”

Getting to know each other better… Talking about their daily lives…

Kokichi’s heart starts racing frantically in his chest like one of the beasts they fought in their older dreams, and he can’t calm it down. An emergency joke or a smooth lie won’t appear in his spinning head, either; to cover his hitched breath and burning cheeks, he grabs his friend’s hat and teasingly swings it in front of his face. Shuichi jolts – the perfect opportunity to escape that Ouma doesn’t want to waste.

Hide-and-seek has always been his favorite game. He’s going to run away and hide in this bookcase labyrinth, and then–

He hasn’t seen Shuichi without his stupid hat ever since he was 13. The sight of him stops the train of thought and freezes his tensed-up body.

There is no shadow to cover the upper half of his face anymore, so it appears in front of Kokichi in its whole beauty, soft pale skin begging his fingers to touch it, dark-blue hair looking so soft that his hands hurt once he imagines how nice it would feel to play with it. Even his eyes look clearer and bigger, along with the eyelashes that now seem much longer.

Shuichi hasn’t changed much over the years, only got a more adult look and attitude to him, yet Kokichi can’t stop staring and admiring each tiny detail as though they haven’t met in a long time.

Does he look exactly the same, or is it an idealized version of him? How does he see Kokichi, then?...

Suddenly deep in thought, Ouma doesn’t care to notice how Shuichi’s hands travel from his spine to his arm, gripping it firmly so that he can’t escape. The hat returns to its owner; however, he doesn’t put it back on anymore.

“Don’t take it off so harshly, okay?” he asks softly. The tender tone of his voice sends waves of electricity down Kokichi’s arms and legs. “And please don’t dodge the question. I’ll understand if you don’t want to share anything about yourself, just answer it honestly.”

Why is he so kind to Ouma? Wasn’t he more cautious before?

It’s strange to feel dreamy and absent-minded while already being in a dream. Kokichi blinks a few times before the static leaves his mind and he can be himself again.

“But of cooourse I would love to know more about my imaginary friend!” he snickers, his own voice barely reaching his ears through the heavy pondering. “Do you have friends? Are you a teacher’s pet at school?”

His free hand meets Shuichi’s on the bill of the hat. Ignoring the tickling feeling in his lungs and stomach, Ouma watches with satisfaction how his friend winces and blushes harder.

“And stop wearing this hat already, jeez! You look so much better without it!”

The taller boy manages to squeeze out a shy smile. “Didn’t you tell me the complete opposite back when we first met?”

“That was a lie. I’m a liar, after all.”

They drop the hat on the floor.

Chapter Text

If Kokichi could choose between sleeping eternally and not sleeping at all, he would probably spend around 23 hours sleeping with a one-hour break to fulfill all possible human needs in order for his body to function properly. Like a koala. Koalas sleep 22 hours a day. Kokichi immediately imagines himself as a koala, swinging from Shuichi’s strong shoulders, and it makes his heart tingle playfully in his chest. And no, he’s totally not daydreaming during a biology test right now.

Well, it’s not like he needs to think or do anything. He just waits with angelic patience until his big, long-haired classmate passes the small piece of paper with all correct answers through the whole classroom. The teacher, looking like a fried shrimp (Ouma always calls him that), is sitting on his chair motionless as his eyes keep struggling to stay focused on his students. He’s just too old to be bothered by the collective cheating. Such a boring guy.

Kokichi hears Miu sigh heavily behind his back before her manicured hand pats him on the shoulder and passes the answer sheet. It takes the boy just a minute to copy big, crooked letters into his own work, but he spends some more time drawing a dick in the bottom corner before passing it further to Kiibo. A disappointed snort makes Kokichi grin with triumph.

“This isn’t even funny anymore,” the white-haired boy whispers under his breath. Ouma stretches his leg and pushes his chair in response.

“Of course,” he snickers quietly. “It’s a tradition. You can’t make fun of what’s precious.”

Idabashi doesn’t say anything else.

Once the test – or, rather, a mass cheating session – is over, the trio lazily walks to the schoolyard to have lunch together. The fresh spring air tickles Kokichi’s nose with its floral aroma, and the soft sounds of young leaves playing in the wind (along with Kiibo’s uncontrollable sneezing) surround him like a pleasant melody. They sit on their favorite bench, all covered in meaningless doodles and messages, and start eating in silence. No one says a word. Kokichi watches the sunlight shine on Iruma’s skin, wondering why the dark circles under her eyes keep getting worse. Kiibo continues sneezing.

School life is coming to an end. That’s probably why they don’t talk that much these days. Kokichi keeps thinking about how they’re going to drift apart after graduation, pursuing different futures and different goals, and it makes his heart hurt – only a little, but enough to make him quieter than usual. Most of their conversations tend to end on a melancholic note, leaving this heavy, wistful aftertaste that none of them can get rid of. They make promises Ouma knows they won’t keep or laugh bitterly at the thought of becoming adults and complaining about the most boring things, like taxes and children, and everything is just so…

Kiibo sneezes for the third time in a row without a pause.

“Goddammit, Kiibo!” Miu finally explodes. She reaches for her bag and grabs a tissue. “I told you not to forget your meds!”

“Well, I’m a human being, not a robot! I can forget things, you know!” Idabashi whines.

“Now everyone is forced to listen to your annoying kitten sneezes!”

“Kitten sneezes?! I-isn’t that supposed to be cute?!”

In a matter of seconds, the quiet schoolyard gets filled with arguing voices – Iruma’s, loud and ringing, and Kiibo’s, sick and nasal. These two argue like a married couple sometimes, wasting nearly hours just shouting at each other with no purpose. Kokichi rolls his eyes; would love to get away from these situations by daydreaming about a certain someone, but his friends’ irritating voices never let him do that. And even now, desperately trying to concentrate on some distant sounds of birds singing and cars roaring, Ouma can’t focus on anything but the banter.

Stupid idiots. He has the worst friends ever (though it might be a lie).

“Anyways,” he claps loudly to get everyone’s attention; two pairs of eyes, glowing from fury, immediately lock on his signature smirk. “Why does our always cheerful and optimistic Miu look so tired these days?”

The girl in question snorts angrily and pushes him with her elbow. “I can feel the sarcasm, bastard! And you better not piss me off because my head’s been going crazy!”

“Your head?” Kiibo sneezes mid-sentence. “What do you mean by that?”

“Like hell I know! Some weird shit keeps happening to me!”

Iruma loves exaggerating things, but this remark makes Kokichi tense up without noticing. Something weird is happening to Miu’s head? She has never complained like that before. A small spark of hope – or, rather, fear – lights up in Ouma’s suddenly worried heart, and he listens more carefully, putting his phone away.

“Some weird shit?” what if he mentioned… “Like what, wet dreams or something?”

“T-that’s not a weird thing…” Kiibo chimes in, but quickly pauses and pretends to sneeze awkwardly. Kokichi barely holds back a snort.

“Ah shut up, you pervs!” Strangely enough, Miu doesn’t seem to have noticed her friend’s slip-up. “I wish it was a dream, honestly. It all happens when I’m awake and I’m so freaking mad.”

Ah. No dreams. Ouma doesn’t understand if it’s relief or disappointment, but tension quickly leaves his body. Still, he stares at his friend’s tired blue eyes, curious about what’s happening to her.

The girl moves closer to the boys as if telling them a scary secret. “I don’t even know how to explain this! If any of you makes fun of me, I’ll stick my new vacuum cleaner up your–”

“You know that only motivates me more, now spill the beans!” Kokichi hurries her up. Miu hums angrily but doesn’t back off.

“I…” she closes her eyes for a moment, probably choosing the right words. Her usual confident mask falls from her face in a flinch. “Sometimes… I hear music in my head. Like, classical music. This boring-ass piano mewling.”

What.

Kokichi winces as his mind tries to process what he just heard. It sounds ridiculous, like a made-up story from some anime, and makes absolutely zero sense in every possible context. Miu has never been a huge fan of classical music nor has she ever struggled with hallucinations or delusions. It sounds like a dumb lie to distract them from something or ease the tension; however, the helpless face she’s making and the light falter in her usually loud, clear voice make Ouma realize she’s being completely serious.

Besides… it’s not like she’s the only one struggling with something weird and unrealistic. A bright memory of Shuichi’s smile flashes in Kokichi’s head, making him wince again. He clears his throat, afraid of losing focus.

“Didn’t know Miu could tell such cringy lies!”

“This definitely sounds fake,” Kiibo admits worryingly. “But what’s the point in lying like that?”

Miu furiously jerks back, piercing through her friends with her iceberg-like eyes. “I knew you idiots wouldn’t believe me!”

She looks stressed out and upset – it reminds Kokichi of himself back in the days. Disbelief and confusion are written all over her suddenly heavy, tired body, covering her like ugly tattoos; the girl quickly becomes a dark cloud on this sunny spring day. Before he can register what he’s doing, Ouma grabs her by the wrist right as she gets up to leave.

“What if we do?” he smirks. “You still have an opportunity to trick us, you know.”

He meets his friends’ surprised gazes with a wide grin, trying to ignore fret tickling his stomach. Miu freezes like a wax effigy, and only her hair still moves, catching the light wind like sea waves.

“So d-do you believe me or not?!” she stutters, irritation and hope mixed in her voice. Ouma tilts his head to Kiibo’s side.

“But of course! I think Kiibo might even know why this is happening to you,” he shoots a meaningful glance towards the mentioned boy, “riiiight?”

“Right!” like an obedient student called out by the teacher, Idabashi straightens his back and nods quickly. “I, um, actually think this might be because of stress.”

Miu returns to her place, looking confused. “Stress? What does classical music have to do with it?”

“Well, you’ve been working very hard on your inventions for that university… It was only a matter of time your head would get weird.”

Kiibo is right. Miu has been pressuring herself a lot, all for the engineering university she wants to get in very badly. Kokichi remembers that lately, all she’s been talking about is her inventions and ideas.

Still, it’s strange. They’ve been through quite a lot together, and Iruma has never complained about anything like that before. Maybe it’s some weird psychological phenomenon? Shuichi might know the answer, he’s been into psychology for a while – Kokichi makes a mental note for himself to ask his dream friend about it.

When his attention shifts back to his friends, he sees Miu biting her lips, deep in thought.

“You know what, losers?” she mumbles, chewing on her lips like it’s her favorite gum. “I may actually be that stressed. Inventions take up a lot of my time, and my dad is being a bitch about it. Still, classical music? Couldn’t it be something less dull?”

“Classical music is believed to relieve stress,” Idabashi states pridefully. His still nasal voice makes him sound like a comical professor. “Moreover, some medical experts recommend it for pregnant women since it’s also believed to help yet-to-be-born infants.”

“The hell?! I’m not an infant anymore!”

“I think you’ve missed the important point there, Miu…”

Their conversation ends with another pointless banter that (luckily) doesn’t last as long as the previous one, and after that, they finally get down to eat. Kokichi can’t fight off that strange feeling he caught once Miu first told them about her problem. The weirdness of her situation can’t help but remind him of his own. What if Miu also has someone she’s secretly connected with? How does their bond work? Who could that person be? There is no music club in their school, so it must be a complete stranger. They might not even be from Tokyo. Or Japan.

Come to think of it, where is Shuichi from? Ouma has been sure they both live in the same city. He picked up a few clues the other boy dropped while telling him stories about his daily life, and he knows Shuichi does it, too. They’ve never mentioned any concrete places, or where they live, strangely enough – or maybe they did, but Kokichi doesn’t have any memories of it.

Their dreams have stopped being consistent – one dream fleets, the other lasts forever, – and the places they’re thrown in have become less… fictional. Lately, they’ve been meeting at cafes and restaurants, museums and parks, rooftops and playgrounds. It’s difficult to remember such realistic, uneventful scenarios, even though Ouma tries to do his best. Now that they’re focused more on each other, he consumes every piece of information about his companion like his favorite candies. Shuichi has truly become the most important person in his life.

Despite that, there are some things that leave his head as soon as he wakes up; he spends days trying to recall what they were, but to no avail. Kokichi feels like he still doesn’t know Shuichi personally, no matter how much time they spend together and how many questions they ask each other. It’s crazy.

Does the problem lie in Kokichi and, perhaps, his failing memory, or is there any other explanation?

Why did he even start thinking about it in the first place? Someone pats him on the shoulder, and he winces.

“Earth to Ouma Kokichi!” Miu’s voice slams through the static in his mind. “Are you planning to finish your disgusting bento? Lunchtime is almost over.”

Kiibo sneezes in confirmation. “You haven’t touched your food at all. Is everything okay?”

Kokichi despises this question.

“To be honest…” he sighs dramatically. “Ever since I was little, I haven’t been able to taste food. Everything I eat is just bland and boring, and I can’t pretend to enjoy it anymore…”

“Oh screw you!” Miu snorts. “Chop-chop, finish your meal and let’s go. I don’t wanna be late for class because of your lying ass.”

Kokichi rolls his eyes but does as he was told. While eating, he can’t help but stare at Iruma’s eye bags again, and his mind keeps drifting back to some unimaginable explanations.

Then, completely out of the blue, his friend jumps on the bench, her empty bento falling to the ground, and starts gasping for air in pure shock. Kiibo grabs her hand.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?!”

A scared, nervous chuckle escapes Miu’s chapped lips. Kokichi has never seen her behave like this.

“Clair de Lune,” she mutters under her breath. “Debussy.”

***

If Kokichi could choose… Well, it doesn’t matter right now.

The pink lights hurt his purple eyes as he storms into the room, the ominously sweet air falling heavily on his shoulders and getting under his huge white cape. When he looks around, he sees a huge heart-shaped bed in the middle of the room, surrounded by a single horse carousel that looks absolutely out of place and some… strange equipment that he isn’t sure he knows the names of. The room is quiet, and only the soft rumbling of the never-stopping carousel lightly tickles his ears; all other noises are blocked. Come to think of it, the walls here must be soundproof, if Kokichi understood the purpose of this place correctly.

Something heavy bounces inside his secret pocket hidden on the inner side of the cape. What is it?

It’s a diamond.

Right. Kokichi’s consciousness clears like the sky after heavy rain. He stole this diamond from a jewelry exhibition and was being chased by the police. As he was taking turns left and right, he found this cheap-looking love hotel and decided to hide inside one of the rooms. Hopefully, no one from the police will be smart enough to look for him here.

Ouma breathes out in relief and slowly approaches the window at the very back of the room. This isn’t just a good hiding spot but also a great lookout. The window is small and has a tacky curtain covering the upper half of it, so no one from the street will be able to see Kokichi’s victorious smirk. Everything is going smoothly. There’s no greater Phantom Thief than Ouma.

…Or so he thought.

As soon as he reaches out to lift the curtain a little, he hears the door open, muffled panting and cautious steps breaking through the soundproof walls. Someone must’ve found him. The sweetness of the air becomes salty from a wave of anxiety that goes through Kokichi’s mind and body, but he quickly shakes it off. It’s alright. There hasn’t been a single time he got caught. There’s always a way out. After all, he’s standing right next to the window.

He turns around with a smug smirk and a confident look in his purple eyes.

“Ah! Ouma-kun?”

Kokichi blinks in surprise. In front of him, glowing in the vulgar pink and red lights, appears none other than Shuichi. He’s wearing a stereotypical detective trench coat that reaches his knees,with a very formal shirt, and a neatly done tie. A gun is peeking out of the holster that’s fixed on his thigh. This serious, even dangerous look totally catches the thief off guard, and Ouma finds himself staring blankly at the familiar face, unable to do anything. His mind fills up with confused static.

Shuichi shuts the door behind himself and rushes to Kokichi.

“Ouma-kun, are you okay? I heard gunshots during the chase! You left a bloody footprint, that’s how I found you!”

Gunshots? Blood? Ouma doesn’t feel any pain, and his gorgeous white suit is spotless. Something is wrong, but he can’t put a finger on it.

Meanwhile, Saihara carefully examines his frozen shape and lets out a relieved sigh.

“So you’re not hurt,” his lips form a soft smile that immediately causes the thief’s heart to flutter. “It’s been a while since we have had such eventful dreams! I wouldn’t want you to get injured again.”

Dreams…

Everything clicks in Kokichi’s head as if someone turned the lights on in a pitch-black room, and he jolts. Memories flow back in with the speed and power of water breaking a dam. His whole “Phantom Thief” persona erases itself in a flinch along with its cartoonish backstory.

How could he forget his whole life? This kind of thing used to happen before in his dreams, of course. Before Shuichi first appeared. Chills run down the boy’s spine.

“I didn’t get injured. It must’ve been Saihara-chan’s imagination!” he puffs, staring at his dream partner. His eyes unconsciously lock on the moving carousel. “I wonder if this room is also a part of Saihara-chan’s imagination. Doesn’t that scary equipment seem familiar to you?”

Shuichi gasps and turns around, exposing his burning red ears to Kokichi as he does.

“N-not at all,” the “detective” stutters. “I didn’t even notice what this room was all about. It looks rather vulgar.”

“Well, we’re in a love hotel, after all,” Kokichi shrugs. “How did you not notice where you went?”

Hazel eyes, now colored like peach because of this awful lighting, glare back at him with confusion. “To be honest, I barely remember anything now… Only the bloody footprints that made me freak out, and a long hallway with just one door that led me here.”

Kokichi doesn’t remember anything like that. He’s sure he ran through a bunch of hallways and rooms before he jumped into this one. This dream is nothing but a mess. While deep in thought, the “thief” turns around and glances at the window, only to see pitch-black darkness and emptiness instead of the street he swears he ran through.

“Oh,” he blurts out. “Maybe there’s nothing in here but this room.”

“You mean there’s no world around it?”

Shuichi hums, fist pressed against his pursing lips, then suddenly heads back to the door. Kokichi watches him open it cautiously; they find the same darkness on the other side, no hallway or bloody footprints.

“You’re right,” Saihara mutters. “It’s just this room. We haven’t been anywhere else. There’s probably no police to chase you, either.”

Well, it’s a dream, right? Dreams can do crazy tricks on memory. It’s pretty normal to be absorbed in the fictional universe to the point that some details are nothing but guesses and imagination. Still, Kokichi feels a weird dread seize his body.

It hasn’t been like this before. He and Shuichi had to take their time to learn about each world they got into, and their consciousness was never messed up. They were always aware of who they were, but never knew what kind of things each dream prepared for them. Now everything is… reversed.

“We used to exist in such complex, wide worlds,” Kokichi chuckles bitterly. “And now we’re being so limited. In this creepy-ass room, too. Whoever’s managing this must’ve gone crazy.”

Almost 7 years of consistent dreams painted a pretty clear picture in Ouma’s memory. And this particular dream, like a careless artist, drops the first blot on it.

Shuichi notices the worried look in his eyes before he can hide it. The boy appears near the other in less than a second and grabs him by the hands, shyly but firmly. The familiar coldness of his slender fingers snaps Kokichi out of it, though the suspicious feeling still lingers somewhere in his chest.

“It’s okay, Ouma-kun.” Their eyes meet, and the “thief” can see his own reflection in Shuichi’s. “The main thing is that we’re still here, together. I… I don’t really care about the setting anymore.”

Even in the pink lighting, his cheeks get noticeably rouge. Though Kokichi finds it adorable, he can’t help but worry he’s visibly blushing too.

He forces out a snicker and lets his lips form a wide, childish smile. “Well, it’s been pretty boring lately! I wish we had those huge places to explore instead of chatting in cafés and parks as if we’re two gossiping grandmas or something.”

“Gossiping grandmas seem to have a lot of fun together though,” Shuichi chuckles, lightly caressing the other’s fingers. Ouma catches himself thinking he’d do anything to hear this chuckle in real life, first thing in the morning or right before falling asleep, but discards the thought quickly.

They stay silent for a couple of minutes, studying each other. It’s been a while since they changed their appearances like this. Kokichi feels strangely attracted to Shuichi’s new outfit; the boy looks much more mature, and it suits him well. The holster with a gun gives him a risky vibe that makes Ouma’s heart tingle and tremble from excitement.

“You…” his voice has gotten breathy and dreamy. “You look like…”

“…a real Phantom thief,” Saihara finishes, also under his breath.

They both snort. Kokichi lets go of his partner and strikes a pose worthy of an anime villain, extravagant and unnatural.

“Well then, mister detective,” he whispers seductively, his smile turning into a grin. “You still haven’t found where I hid the stolen diamond.”

It secretly warms his heart to see Shuichi perk up at the idea of a detective challenge. “Oh? You hid it somewhere in this room?”

“Maybe. But I won’t tell ya anything, even if you tie me to the bed and rough up my poor little body using those scaaary tools in the back of the room!”

“W-why would I torture you?!” Saihara’s cheeks flush bright red, making Kokichi grin even harder. “I’m a detective, not a sadist!”

“Is that so? I can testify this room is definitely not a subject of my imagination.”

“I wouldn’t imagine anything like that either!”

Ouma’s laugh rings in the hot sweet air. “Sure. Now start searching already!”

Shuichi obediently does just that.

He begins walking around the room, observing every piece of furniture and examining every corner. His focused, concentrated face is the most mesmerizing. It’s lovely how seriously Shuichi took this silly task. It’s lovely to see him snoop around and throw doubtful glances at his friend from time to time. It’s lovely to watch his slim hands feel around the giant bed – so sheepishly as if this bed could grab him and eat him alive any moment – or try to stop the carousel horse and take a closer look at it. Even the way he keeps avoiding that one cursed corner of the room is lovely. (He probably knows Kokichi wouldn’t dare to touch those things, either.)

It’s just… lovely to watch him. Ouma finds himself leaning on the wall, arms crossed on his chest, and staring at the “detective” so intensely that he probably hasn’t blinked ever since they started the game. His cheeks are still burning, and his heart is still fluttering.

He feels so much. He wants to stay like this forever.

The senses come back to him once Shuichi stands by his side, frowning. “Amused yet, thief?”

“Not at all. You’re doing a terrible job at keeping me entertained,” Kokichi murmurs. To his surprise, this remark is met with a soft smirk on the other’s face.

“Is that so? You couldn’t tear your eyes away.”

That hit right where it should have. Ouma averts his gaze and turns away because his face gets flushed at the speed of light, the pink on his cheeks being brighter than the lights in the room. He hears Shuichi chuckle tenderly.

“On a side note, I think I’ve deduced where the diamond is hidden,” the blue-haired boy says. The confident tone of his voice sounds like a pleasant melody to Kokichi. He loves it when Saihara gets less self-conscious in what he does.

“And where would that be, detective?”

“Somewhere… in your suit. I feel like you have secret pockets in there.”

Kokichi feels tempted to lie and mislead Shuichi again, but the thought of the “detective” paying closer attention to his body suddenly feels more appealing. Ignoring his own blushing face, the boy returns his gaze to his partner and smiles maliciously.

“That’s right. The diamond is hidden somewhere on my body.”

For a few moments, Saihara freezes, staring intensely into his friend’s eyes. It feels as though he’s trying to ask a silent question, or maybe for permission, for reassurance, and in this terrible taffy light, with the giant vulgar-looking bed right behind him, he starts to look a little different. At least Kokichi thinks he does, with his heart racing like crazy.

And so, Shuichi approaches him slowly and lifts his arms carefully, checking the waters, and then…

His fingers start tickling Ouma all over, from hips to stomach.

“H-hey! That’s not– that’s not fair at all!”

In a matter of seconds, Kokichi turns into a laughing and thrashing mess. He keeps trying to increase the distance between them, but Shuichi’s hands get glued to his most ticklish parts, never letting him get away or even breathe normally. The whole room becomes a hot pink mix of shapes and lights, sometimes with dark-blue spots flickering among it. Each touch sends a bunch of electric signals through the boy’s body and hearing Shuichi’s occasional giggles only makes it worse.

After a few failed attempts to get away, Kokichi finally starts trying to fight back. He manages to take his friend by surprise; Shuichi gasps and accepts the challenge without a word, and it’s anyone’s game from now on. All they both can feel is the warmth of each other’s bodies, the tickles of each other’s fingers, and the sounds of each other’s laughter that fills the room with life and joy.

Suddenly, Ouma trips as his knees hit the bed, and they both fall right on it.

Well, it’s not like the challenge is over. It only gets more intense. The new objective is to make the opponent helpless and expose all his ticklish spots. Sadly, Kokichi starts at a disadvantage and Shuichi picks up on it rather quickly, so he ends up being forced to surrender and, barely breathing, crying his crocodile tears, admits defeat.

The room eventually gets back to normal, though now it feels less vulgar and much more comfortable. Kokichi sees his dream partner right above him, like in the movies – and, just  like in the movies, it’s a rather breathtaking sight.

Shuichi’s formal outfit is messed up as if he’s a troublemaker from middle school. His hair is shaggy, single dark-blue strands sticking out in all directions here and there, and his face has a healthy, lively blush painted across it. A pair of peach-colored eyes is glowing brighter than Kokichi has ever seen, but what’s even more exciting is his smile. It’s just as wide, playful, and childish as his own. Ouma doesn’t remember his friend smiling like that during the last few years as they got older, and even as a child he would always smile more timidly.

Shuichi looks… truly, sincerely happy.

And Kokichi realizes there’s nothing he wants more than to see him like this every day. His racing heart stops.

The “detective” lets out the last giggle, softer and quieter than the ones from during the game, and then gently brushes the messy purple hair from his friend’s face. This simple little gesture causes such a huge hurricane of emotions inside Kokichi that he barely manages to breathe. As if he’s being tickled again, this time by something invisible and light as air.

The always caring, thoughtful gaze pierces right through him.

“How strange…” Shuichi’s still panting voice sounds so close. With each second they lie like this, more and more tension squeezes Ouma’s body.

“What’s strange?”

The smile slowly disappears, and a heedful expression appears on Saihara’s face.

“We’ve been meeting for so many times, and yet…” a fond chortle slips from his lips, “up until now, I never knew how ticklish you were.”

Kokichi feels like the bed disappears from under him, and he falls into an empty space with no gravity. His limbs, his chest, his lungs – everything gets numb and weightless, and the only thing he can sense clearly is his dream companion’s warm breath lingering on his cheeks.

His eyes shift slowly to Shuichi’s lips. He feels so drawn to them all of a sudden. An itching desire to bring their faces together grows stronger and quicker than a forest fire, and although he’s well-known as a self-proclaimed master of hiding his feelings and bottling them up, he’s worried he won’t be able to fight this one.

As luck would have it, Shuichi keeps silent. Kokichi decides it’s time to take control before emotions get ahead of him.

“Really? You forgot already?” some sort of miracle helps him force a few crocodile tears out, though he sounds weaker than usual. “I told you all about my ticklishness when we were 16! How mean of you to forget what I tell you about myself!”

Unexpectedly, Shuichi uses this as an opportunity to caress his cheek, carefully wiping the tears off his face. His hands feel warm, for a change. All of him is warm now.

“I would’ve remembered such an important clue,” he refutes quietly. “Liar.”

“I’m not!”

“Oh really? Didn’t you call yourself “the biggest liar in the universe” when we were 12, during our encounter with a clown army?”

“You remember that?!”

“Well, I have been told I have a good memory for a reason…”

Shuichi blushes and backs away. The tension eases, the room gets lighter – everything comes back to where and how it should be. The only thing that still feels weird (and still craves Shuichi’s lips) is Kokichi’s aching heart, but he clenches it in an imaginary fist and orders it to shut up. That was… a stupid moment of vulnerability, nothing more.

Right?

Saihara lays down beside him with a shaky sigh, the bed creaking lightly under his slow movements. Kokichi feels scared to look in his friend’s direction, so he stares awkwardly at the ceiling as if it’s the most interesting place in the whole room.

“Anyways,” he hums. “What was my beloved up to today? Did anything not boring happen in your totally super fun life?”

The blue-haired boy mimics his quiet, dreamy voice, though Kokichi can notice how his breath hitched at the nickname. “Ah, nothing much… Momota-kun made me train after PE again, Akamatsu-san was busy with her concert preparations… And then I just went home and spent all evening preparing for final exams, that’s all.”

“Jeez, you’re such a nerd! And isn’t it annoying to train after PE?”

“Well, I’ve been getting stronger, so it seems to be paying off. And maybe…”

Shuichi pauses for a moment, and Kokichi hears his breath hitch again. His eyes drift to look at his friend on their own; he sees the other’s face, blushing hard for some reason, so close to his own that his stomach starts tingling again.

“Maybe what?”

“Uh,” Saihara visibly tenses up; he probably noticed his companion’s eyes glued to him. “M-maybe… If we ever get to meet in real life… I will be able to give you a piggyback ride.”

Meet in real life. These words make Ouma quiver and fidget on his back in a mere second, trying to brush the tingling feelings off his skin.

Meeting Shuichi in real life one day… would be nice. Seeing his face in the daylight, without being afraid of waking up. Holding his hand without wondering if the sensations of his cold skin and slender fingers are real or not. Hearing his voice among the usual daily noise of streets. Introducing him to Miu and Kiibo and finally getting to meet Shuichi’s friends. Kokichi totally hasn’t been dreaming about it ever since they made sure they were both real people.

His thoughts from earlier flow back into his sleeping mind. After all these years together, neither of them has revealed their address or even the city they live in. Why so?...

“W-what about you?” Meanwhile, Saihara cautiously turns around to meet Kokichi’s hazy eyes. For a moment, the purple-haired boy imagines how wonderful it would be to see him like this, lying next to him on the same bed, every morning, but his stomach begins to hurt. “Did anything happen today on your end?”

“Iruma-chan has been acting weird lately… She’s started hearing classical music at random times.”

This conversation drowns in Kokichi’s head, buried under other thoughts. He just can’t stop thinking about meeting Shuichi in real life. What has been stopping both of them all these years? Should he try bringing it up now?

“Classical music?”

Somewhere at the very bottom of his heart, Ouma feels uneasy about this sudden idea. Still, he works up the courage and, filled with determination, gets up on his elbows, staring right at Shuichi’s confused face.

“Saihara-chan. Do you think we can meet in real life somehow?”

The called-out boy winces.

“Meet in real life?”

Shuichi raises his eyebrows, then lowers them, frowning, and covers his mouth with his palm. Kokichi guesses he must have realized the same. Why haven’t they tried it yet? What was stopping them each and every time? This fact is simply weird, and this exact thought flashes in Saihara’s eyes.

“Wait,” he mumbles through his fingers. “Haven’t we…”

“…Discussed it earlier?” Ouma finishes, quickly nodding. “I have a feeling that we have!”

Faint memories of the dreams they forgot start flickering in his head like broken Christmas lights. That one time, at the café… didn’t Shuichi mention he lived in–

A flash of pain strikes his forehead, and Kokichi shudders, his thought process stopping immediately.

“Are you okay, Ouma-kun?” Shuichi sits up next to him and gently strokes his shoulder. “I think we’ve tried that before, but never succeeded. I barely remember. I wonder why…”

This touch helps Kokichi relax a little. “Maybe I lied and I’m just the subject of your crazy imagination?” he grins at his friend and sees a single speck of doubt taint his glare. “Have you ever wondered if it was just an elaborate dream?”

“We both know you’re lying right now. I’ve read a lot of books about it a few years ago, and there has never been an occasion that someone saw the same person in their dreams continuously for many years.”

“Then what do you think it is, Detective?”

Shuichi pauses for a moment, staring back at his dream companion. A nervous smile flinches on his lips.

“I don’t believe in these things, but it might be just… fate?”

“Fate?” Ouma snorts. His whole face changes in disbelief and suspicion, but Saihara doesn’t back down.

“It’s definitely something unusual and irrational, right?” he mumbles, fiddling with the fancy blanket. “I’ve spent many years trying to figure out a logical explanation behind this and ultimately failed. I used to feel scared and uneasy because of that, but now I’ve come to cherish it. After all…” his gaze falls, eyelashes fluttering in the rosy light. “Momota-kun says that anything is possible as long as you believe in it.”

His words tickle Kokichi just like his hands did.

Shuichi cherishes their time together. He doesn’t care about logic as long as they can meet every night. Does that mean Shuichi values Kokichi just as much as Kokichi values him? It would be stupid to think he didn’t, but Ouma still doubts it every time.

It seems almost too good to be true.

“And what do you think, hm?”

The shorter boy jumps on the bed, pushing the bouncy mattress with his knees. He’s been so pensive and absent-minded lately, it’s annoying.

“What do I think?” he bites his thumb unconsciously. No suitable lie comes to mind, so he covers it up with a carefree smile. “I don’t know, Saihara-chan! I just wanna meet you already!”

His nonchalant tone is met with Shuichi’s serious, determined face.

“Me too,” the “detective” mumbles thoughtfully. “Let’s try it right now then, shall we?”

A sudden feeling of deja-vu pierces through Ouma’s heart as he drops his smile and nods in silent, worried agreement.

His chest gets smaller and tighter from unreasonable panic. What’s so concerning and unsettling about telling each other their home address? Or arranging a meeting? What could be suspicious about the fact they’ve never tried doing this before? And even if they failed, what’s the worst that could happen?

Maybe Kokichi is just too afraid to lose Shuichi forever because of some careless mistake. Especially now, when things have started to get sketchy and inconsistent.

He watches Saihara carefully outstretch his hand towards him. “Before we do that, can you please give me the diamond you “stole”?” he demands out of the blue. It takes Kokichi a moment to understand what he meant.

“Ah, but you haven’t found it yet,” he purls with a smirk that feels both smug and unsure. “Looking for an easy way to outplay me, detective? That’s cheating.”

He expects Shuichi to get annoyed, but the other boy plays along with a short sigh. “The cape. You have a hidden pocket on the inner side of it. I noticed it while we were tickling each other.”

“Getting handsy is also cheating!”

“Ouma-kun, if you don’t give me the diamond right now, I’ll tickle you again.”

With a dramatic sob, Kokichi grabs his cape. “My beloved Saihara-chan turns out to be such a scary meanie!”

“H-how is tickling mean and scary?!”

They both stop talking once Ouma’s small fingers dig inside the hidden pocket and take out the gem. Their eyes immediately lock on it; it’s much bigger than both of them could imagine, and it blinds them with the light that reflects from it, glitters under the pink and red lamps, and splatters colorful sunbeams across the whole room. Realistically speaking, this huge diamond probably wouldn’t fit inside Ouma’s tiny secret pocket, but in the dream world, anything can happen.

The “thief” shakes his head, checking how heavy the diamond truly is. He’s never seen such beautiful jewels up close, only in the movies or manga, so letting it go suddenly seems harder than he anticipated. He’d love to have it in his room, catching sunlight and painting the walls in tiny rainbow-colored dots, to show it off to his friends, to keep it as a memento of the moment he’s never experienced… But if it’s for Shuichi, he can give out anything. Kokichi tears his eyes away from the diamond and hands it over to his friend.

Shuichi’s eyes glow better than diamonds when he smiles, anyway.

“Why do you need it in the first place?” still, it doesn’t hurt to ask. The “detective” bites his lip, lost in thought.

“For a better memory,” he explains. “Sometimes, it’s easier to recall something using a certain object associated with it.”

“Oh, right!” Kokichi catches up immediately. “You want to use it because you think we might keep forgetting what we say?”

Saihara smiles at him with relief. “You’re reading my mind.”

“I know! I’m a professional mind reader!”

They both chuckle in unison, then begin to stare intensely at the diamond, squinting their eyes because of how brightly it shines. Shuichi takes a deep breath. Kokichi hears his own heartbeat pumping in his ears.

“I have my guesses, so… Let’s avoid the names for now and see how it goes,” the taller boy commands cautiously. “I assume we both live in the same city, right? In the capital.”

“Yeah,” Ouma breathes out, nodding. His arms and legs get cold from the anxiety slowly growing inside of him. It feels like any word can destroy their whole dream universe in a flinch. “South, North, West, East?”

“West, but near the middle… What about you?”

“Same… so we’re probably from the same area, too.”

“Good. Now…”

Thump thump thump thump. His heart is ready to break out of his chest. Kokichi can barely keep his gaze fixed on the diamond; its light feels as sharp as a dagger now, hurting his eyes.

“How do we narrow down the meeting place without saying names?” he asks, his voice lost.

Shuichi doesn’t reply right away. His breathing gets more and more frequent, shorter.

“If we’re both in the West, near the middle… Maybe we should try that one subway station that has a statue of a famous dog nearby?”

Kokichi immediately guesses the place. Shibuya, the Hachiko statue. He focuses hard on the gem, whispering “Hachiko” and “Shibuya” to himself continuously, and the worry in his heart slowly changes into excitement. Nothing bad or suspicious happened so far. They might finally meet today!

Shuichi seems to have calmed down a bit, too. His voice sounds less doubtful and more assertive. “Now for the time. You ready?”

So, all it took was avoiding the direct names of certain places? It was that easy all along?

“Of course I am,” Kokichi chuckles nervously. His partner lets out a short chortle as well.

“Tell me the time you’ll be free today.”

The purple-haired boy gathers all his focus on the diamond in Shuichi’s slightly shaking hands, clears his head…

“I can ditch school so that no one drags me into anything.”

“I’ll do the same. Just tell me when I should be there.”

He takes another deep breath. They’re just one step away from finally seeing each other.

“Let’s meet at–”

And he doesn’t get to finish the sentence.

His body shudders, shaking the dream off like an earthquake, and he opens his eyes widely in one rough, sudden movement.

At first, he feels dizzy. His senses don’t seem to come back to him as quickly as his consciousness. He spends a few minutes staring blankly at the ceiling, trying to remember all the events from the dream he just had, but memories barely make it back into his head. Phantom Thief and the detective… the ugly love hotel room… the pink lights and gentle tickles… the lips he wanted to kiss so much… and then…

Then what?

Something deep down screams at him to remember it as soon as possible, but Kokichi can’t recall anything else. Did he miss anything? Was there something else, something important and crucial? No matter how hard he tries, his memory doesn’t help. He feels as though he forgot an important detail about Shuichi, but there’s nothing he can do other than brush the feeling off for the time being.

Another boring day at school awaits him. He spends the first few classes daydreaming, remembering Shuichi’s laughing face and gentle touches, barely keeping his own hands from trying to recreate them.

It only strikes him during Physics that something is wrong.

The teacher mumbles something about how light works or whatever. Kokichi never cares about Physics enough to pay attention. However, a single remark makes his body tremble in realization.

“It’s easy to watch how light refracts when we look at the diamond, for example.”

The diamond. The diamond. Ouma feels cold sweat appear on his back.

What was in his hidden pocket? What did he steal?

The diamond. What happened to it then?

It was in Shuichi’s hands. Why did Kokichi give it to him?

His head hurts from all the pressure he’s putting himself through. The classroom spins around him in an ominous dance, and even the monotonous voice of his teacher sounds mocking.

Why did Kokichi give the diamond to Shuichi?

Vague echoes of their conversation play in his head on replay like an old, damaged cassette until he finally remembers what they tried to do.

“Sometimes it’s easier to recall something using a certain object associated with it.”

They wanted to share their addresses to finally reveal where they live, right? Or were they trying to arrange a meeting? Where did they want to do that? When did the dream cut off? Did they manage to share anything?

Kokichi spends the rest of the school day trying to remember anything else, but to no avail. The picture of the dream turns into a pink chaotic mass with nothing but the shapes of his and Shuichi’s faces. Ouma can’t help but feel that they were really close, that they almost succeeded, and it tears his heart apart.

Why won’t the mysterious powers that brought them together let them finally meet in real life? Could there be a crucial reason or some hidden truth they are yet to discover? So many questions, and no ways to find answers to them right away…

Only Kiibo’s sneezes finally wake him up from this dreadful, frantic, useless remembering.

“Hey Kokichi! Miu wants to hang out somewhere in Shibuya today, will you go with us?”

All hours of hard thinking have grown into an awful migraine. Kokichi can barely turn his head without flashes of pain striking his scalp.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he gasps, not even hearing himself properly. “I was chosen as a new teenage-style icon to pose for a magazine cover! My photoshoot starts in 2 hours, so I should hurry and go home!”

Kiibo’s eyes watch him get up with pure disbelief. “Aren’t you more of a fashion disaster?”

“What do you know about fashion, geek?”

Why can’t he meet Shuichi in real life?

“Fair,” Idabashi sighs helplessly. “So you won’t come, right? Miu will be upset…”

Ouma fights a sudden urge to cover his eyes and ears and grabs his school bag. “As if I care how she feels!”

“You do,” his friend refutes softly. “But fine, I understand you have plans for today. Have fun, okay?”

Could the problem lie in one of them?

“You too,” Kokichi mumbles. Kiibo nods with a friendly smile and leaves the classroom.

The purple-haired boy glances at the window, squinting his eyes as the light slices them like a dagger. His head keeps hurting, but he can’t stop the hurricane of thoughts to ease it. With each new guess, his body gets weaker to carry back home.

Why can’t they meet during the day?

Could Shuichi have lied about being real?

***

If Kokichi could choose between sleeping eternally and not sleeping at all, he would probably pick the first option.

One thing is certain: they aren’t allowed to meet in real life. Even though they can recall trying to pick a place and time again and again, the most important details slip out of their memory as soon as they wake up, or they don’t get to finish their sentences at all. The dreams get even shorter, simpler, as if the person who produces them got lazy and doesn’t care about the setting in the slightest anymore. Kokichi feels more and more anxious.

He spends most of his free time researching this phenomenon but doesn’t find anything. His best lead is cheesy fanfiction and anime, but it’s stupid to believe such unreliable resources. (Still, Kokichi reads a few works with a small word count, and he totally doesn’t tear up over one of them)

The fact that he seems to be the only person he’s ever known to have this issue makes him question his own sanity. Could Shuichi be just some sort of elaborate fantasy? That sounds like a good possibility. Only a subject of his fantasies could be such a perfect match for him. He could’ve created an ideal version of someone he’d feel safe and comfortable with and let it monopolize his brain. With this on his mind, Kokichi almost books a therapist appointment, only to realize he’s too scared to open up about anything to someone who doesn’t look, sound, and feel like Shuichi.

Miu gets too busy with her university preparations, Kiibo probably won’t understand anything – Kokichi feels completely alone with his fears and doubts, and it drives him insane. Sometimes right before falling asleep, he imagines how one night he won’t meet Shuichi anymore. This thought makes him so anxious that he stays up almost all night, and their next encounter turns out the shortest they’ve ever had.

Saihara also looks uneasy. He hugs Kokichi at the beginning of every dream now, tugging him as close as possible, squeezing his petite body in his arms. They stop having carefree conversations and playing games because Shuichi keeps coming up with new elaborate methods to meet in real life, never succeeding. The atmosphere of their dreams gets duller and heavier. Ouma barely enjoys them anymore, to be honest.

Don’t get him wrong. He yearns to stay with Shuichi forever. He’d trade anything to see him every day, to talk to him every hour, to hold his hands and listen to his lovely voice. The bond he has with Saihara is the strongest he can ever possibly build, and the emotions this dream boy makes him feel can never compare with anything he’s experienced in his life so far.

Being constantly afraid of losing him clashes with another feeling, warm and happy, the one Kokichi is completely unfamiliar with. This inner battle never ends, only causing him more trouble.

School doesn’t leave him alone either. Preparations for their graduation start, and everyone always needs something from him. Teachers keep throwing them back and forth like toy balls, sending them to rehearsals of some cringy scenes or ordering them to prepare rooms and decorations. Today, for example, they’re asked to check and sort out all the old props from the school’s forgotten storage room. The unlucky pair to stay there for the longest time and clean them up is Kokichi and his big, long-haired classmate Gokuhara Gonta – yes, the one who lets them cheat off him during every biology test. Kokichi considers Gonta a boring person, not matching any of his personal interests, but since he’s so naïve and kind, the shorter boy doesn’t hesitate to order him around and make him take on all their “shared” responsibilities. Gokuhara gladly agrees.

So, there they are. Ouma, sitting on one of the empty tables, swinging his short legs from it, and Gonta, cleaning every item enthusiastically.

The silence of the storage room makes Kokichi’s terrifying thoughts louder. The desperate memories of Shuichi’s face appear in each and every one, and it only hurts more.

“We’ve been meeting for so many times, and yet… up until now, I never knew how ticklish you were.”

“The main thing is that we’re still here, together. I… I don’t really care about the setting anymore.”

“I used to feel scared and uneasy because of that, but now I’ve come to cherish it.”

Why can’t they meet in real life?

Kokichi is certainly real. Without a doubt. The problem most likely lies in Shuichi. Even though his stories and facts about himself sounded pretty realistic, Kokichi can’t help but wonder if he’s being fooled by his own consciousness. He also remembers that one fanfic (the one he absolutely didn’t cry over) where one character in the pair was already dead, so they could only meet another in dreams.

Is Shuichi… dead? Ouma shivers but proceeds with this terrifying guess.

Could it be a guy who lived in the past? Maybe it’s someone who died on the same day Kokichi was born? And if he’s truly… deceased, why does he grow up with Kokichi, why does he pretend to live his normal everyday life, why does he know everything about the latest news when they discuss them?

No. No. Shuichi cannot be dead. Ouma doesn’t care if he’s lying to himself, but he won’t accept such guesses anymore.

But if his dream companion is alive and well, what the problem could be…?

“Hey Ouma-kun!” Gokuhara’s deep, loud voice snaps him back into reality. “Gonta wants to take a short break, is that okay?”

Jeez, why did he have to say this right now, when Kokichi was so close to another good guess?

“Fine, peasant,” he sighs, moving a little so that his giant classmate could lean on the table next to him. “Breaks are the most important part of any work!”

“This is why Ouma-kun is still taking a break, right?” Gonta nods happily and stretches his muscular arms in relief. Kokichi barely holds back a snort.

“Exactly! But you still haven’t worked as much to earn such a long break like me.”

“Gonta will do his best! Don’t worry about it!”

Whether it’s his gullibility or a simple desire to help, Ouma feels a little bit grateful for being paired with this guy. He keeps all the dirty work away from Kokichi’s precious hands that he believes are only made for being held in Shuichi’s, nothing else.

They stay silent. There’s nothing to talk about. Kokichi stares at the dusty wall while his unreasonably happy partner keeps studying his palms. The rare noises from outside the storage room appear every now and then, disturbing the awkward silence. Other students should be leaving home already, lucky them… During any other time, Ouma would also be eager to go home as early as possible, finish everything and go to sleep. However, nowadays anxiety keeps him awake for too long, and he doesn’t look forward to nighttime that much anymore.

Could Shuichi feel the same way? Does he even want to meet with Kokichi at this point? Another shiver runs down the purple-haired boy’s spine, so he decides to shift his attention to his real-life partner instead of burdening himself with fears.

Besides, Gokuhara’s behavior starts to get… a little weird. He’s not studying his palms anymore – instead, he rolls up the sleeves of his brown velvet jacket and brushes the big fingers against the skin on his forearms. Kokichi notices scratches all over it, though they seem to be healing smoothly.

“A cat?” he asks, trying to sound unbothered. Gonta winces in surprise.

“Ah! Yes, cats,” he nods with a wide smile. “But the cats are not Gonta’s.”

For a moment, Ouma feels a bit jealous. He wishes he could play with someone’s cat right now. It would probably make him calmer.

“I see. I hate cats,” he mumbles.

“Well, that’s quite unfortunate! Gonta thinks cats are precious.”

As if Kokichi doesn’t think the same.

He suddenly remembers how Shuichi would call him a cat as a joke, and he’d play along, purring inside his friend’s shoulders and demanding head pats. Shuichi would always get terribly flustered at that, but give him what he asked for (and would receive the same awkward reaction, perfectly hidden behind a sly, mischievous smirk). If only Ouma could see the playful side of his dream friend more often...

He sighs and stops the gloomy thinking, trying to pay attention to reality instead. Gokuhara, who’s still sitting next to him, continues touching his arms weirdly. He doesn’t seem to be doing this autonomously; his eyes are studying every bit of his own skin as if he’s looking at an insect or a leaf through a microscope. What’s up with him?

“What are you doing?” the shorter boy blurts out. His classmate shoots him a delighted look.

“Gonta is checking for new messages!”

Kokichi always knew this guy was weird, but not to this extent. He can’t be that stupid, can he?

“What? Isn’t that what phones are usually for?” he glares at Gonta with eyes full of doubt while the other guy doesn’t even drop his happy smile.

“Gonta doesn’t have a phone, so he communicates with his friend through the skin!” he replies.

Well, that sounds extremely dubious. Ouma quickly lightens up, clenching his fists and shaking them playfully.

“Whoaaa, that’s so cool! How does that even work?” Though he doesn’t expect a sensible answer, it never hurts to ask. At least they can fill up this awkward silence with a less awkward absurd conversation.

Gonta sincerely believes his partner’s excitement. He turns to him fully, his face glowing from joy, and fixes his glasses clumsily. “Well, Gonta has a full story! Does Ouma-kun want to hear it?”

“Sure, whatevs.”

The more Kokichi agrees with him, the happier Gokuhara gets. It’s impressive.

“So,” the biology loving boy begins his story. “A year ago, Gonta started noticing cat scratches on his arms, but he has never had cats and always kept his arms clean, like a true gentleman! That was strange. Then one morning, Gonta woke up and saw a few numbers written on his palm, but Gonta had no markers like that and didn’t write anything!”

So far it sounds like a stupid made-up story, even worse than those few fanfics Kokichi read back in the day. “How fun and mysterious!” he gasps, putting all his fake thrill into his tired voice. “What happened next?”

Gokuhara looks incredibly encouraged. “Gonta didn’t know what to do, but Gonta realized it was someone else! So he bought a marker and wrote “Who are you?” on his palm next to the numbers!”

“You did what.”

“And they answered that it was a code they didn’t want to forget! That is how Gonta got a new friend! Now we write messages on our skin and both see them.”

Well, this is ridiculous. Even after Miu’s classical music weirdness and Kokichi’s own dream encounters with Shuichi, this story goes way overboard in every possible way. The boy barely manages to keep his excited mask on before disbelief and ridicule crawl onto his face.

“Gonta found out the scratches were from that person’s cats, too!” happy Gokuhara continues. “So we started talking and Gonta found out a lot about the guy. His name is Hoshi-kun and he has four cats! He loves tennis and lives in Fukuoka! Doesn’t he sound great?”

Hoshi-kun? Four cats? Tennis? Even the exact place where he lives? Kokichi isn’t sure anymore whether he wants to believe his classmate or not. The information seems too specific to make up, and Gonta doesn’t look like the type to create elaborate lies (unlike, of course, Kokichi himself). However, the sheer fact of him communicating with someone through skin makes Ouma’s own skin itchy from suspicion.

“Wow…” is the only thing he can force out of his suddenly widened lungs.

“Impressive, right? Gonta has never been happier!” his partner moves away from the table and starts bouncing on the ground, glowing with energy. “Gonta likes the little cat scratches… it feels like they are right here with him! And drawing is so fun now, too!”

He moves around the storage room like a dancing princess in the ballroom. Kokichi doesn’t recall ever seeing him so delighted. His confused head keeps generating questions that he hesitates to ask.

Does it really work like that? Can some people communicate in such a weird, completely unexplainable way?

Does it have something to do with Miu’s problem and Kokichi’s dreams? Are all people in the world subtly connected with each other by these irrational, mysterious bonds?

The more Kokichi looks at Gonta, the more he sees himself during all those years when he could not care about Shuichi’s disappearance. He was just as happy and excited about his friend from somewhere far, far away, and every day was worth living through just because Shuichi always caught him in his arms at the end of it.

The worst thing is that he still misses Shuichi every day. He still craves for him every minute. His heart beats faster at the only thought of him, at the faintest memory of his face and voice, at the slightest reminder of the things he likes. He feels weightless every time he imagines his hands holding him in a warm, cozy embrace. His stomach hurts when he remembers his soft chuckles and pensive humming.

But now all of this is tainted by the fear of being lost forever without a chance to be brought back.

Gokuhara picks up a random half-broken decoration and begins to clean it with the passion and dedication of a maid. “Hoshi-kun is amazing! I wish Ouma-kun could have a chance to talk to him too!” he exclaims. “We tried to draw each other, and Gonta thinks Hoshi-kun is much smaller in size, so Gonta would love to hold him and spin him around in a gentlemanly dance!”

“If we ever get to meet in real life… I will be able to give you a piggyback ride.”

A spark of pain pops in Ouma’s chest, burning his lungs.

“Hoshi-kun seems a little lonely, so Gonta makes sure to talk to him every day. He didn’t like Gonta at first, but now he even draws tiny cats on Gonta’s arms sometimes! He has so many stories to tell that even Gonta’s big arms and legs aren’t enough for everything.”

“I mean, I would love to know about you and your… daily life? We barely know anything about each other. And I’m… curious to know more about you. You seem like an interesting person.”

“Sometimes bruises appear on Gonta’s body because Hoshi-kun trains really hard, but there’s no pain, so it’s alright! Gonta always cheers for him and asks him to take care of his injuries. Gonta even researched some medical advice for this.”

“You shouldn’t be so reckless, Ouma-kun. Even if you’re sure you won’t… die, you can still get hurt. See?”

Gokuhara’s voice slowly loses its loud tone and gets softer, gentler, as if everything he says from now on is a flattering secret. “Gonta thinks it’s a blessing that he could find such a good friend this way. Gonta’s going to work hard and earn enough money for a cellphone so that he and Hoshi-kun can finally talk one day! Gonta is sure Hoshi-kun has a wonderful voice. Also, Hoshi-kun told Gonta he was going to visit Tokyo this summer, and it’s amazing.”

Kokichi doesn’t even notice how emotions disappear from his own face and his pretentious grin turns into a thin straight line. He feels jealous.

Gosh, he feels so jealous. Jealous that Gokuhara can talk to Hoshi like that, during any time of the day, expecting an immediate response. Jealous that they know each other’s location and physical state. Jealous that they can meet soon without having their communication cut off by invisible, unbreakable forces.

This is just unfair. Why can’t Kokichi do the same with Shuichi? Why can’t he be happy with his most favorite, most cherished person without having to go through so much doubt and dread?

As if to cheer him up, Gonta approaches Kokichi and looks him right in the eyes, his glare shining with curiosity through his big glasses. The shorter boy quickly stretches his lips back into the fake smile, and it’s so horribly poisonous that it burns his lips.

“Does Ouma-kun know this feeling?” Gokuhara’s voice lowers to a cautious whisper. “When your chest feels so light and you can’t stop thinking about someone?”

“Eh? I don’t care about feelings at all!” Ouma lazily puts his hands behind his head. “Why are you even asking me about it?”

His classmate raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh… It’s just that Gonta has never felt this way before, so Gonta doesn’t know the right thing to do,” he sighs. “Gonta has done a lot of research about it but… it’s a little weird.”

It is weird. Kokichi knows exactly what he’s talking about. The room feels smaller and dustier than it is, and he wants to leave.

Yet he keeps quiet, staring back at Gonta.

“When Gonta did research in the school computer class, he found a song about it. Music has never meant much to Gonta, but this song… Makes Gonta feel almost the same as when he’s talking to Hoshi-kun.”

“What is this song?” Kokichi blurts out without thinking. Gokuhara scratches his head shyly.

“Gonta can’t show now. He doesn’t have a phone yet.”

“We can listen to it from mine.”

Ouma hands him the phone and lets him type the name of the song, watching his big clumsy fingers barely hitting the right keys. Both his head and his heart are silent, even the memories being shut down; he’s just as quiet as this room, and he feels just as bad as the broken decorations they’re hopelessly cleaning.

Gokuhara looks back at him, his finger lingering right above the “play” button. “Gonta is sorry. Ouma-kun mentioned that he didn’t care about feelings, and this song makes Gonta feel a lot of them… Is that okay?”

Kokichi wants to lie, but he can’t. He just gives his partner a short nod and averts his eyes from him.

Gonta starts the song. A tender, melancholic piano melody fills the storage room.

***

If Kokichi could choose… he would wish to dream forever and never wake up.

The clock strikes midnight as his head hits the pillow, purple earphones almost falling out of his ears. His mind is full of complicated thoughts and memories of today’s events. Kokichi lets his body drown in the darkness, closing his eyes. He doesn’t want to fall asleep just yet, despite the tiredness.

Instead, he plays the song that wouldn’t leave his head ever since he heard it.

“Short steps, deep breath

Everything is alright

Chin up, I can’t

Step into the spotlight”

Why did it have to happen to him? Why did he have to get such a complicated bond with no connection to reality? Why does he only get to feel this way towards a person who may not even be here anymore?

He knows that he should stop before it goes too far. That he needs to concentrate on learning the truth about Shuichi instead of these stupid feelings. He shouldn’t even feel this way in the first place, it’s stupid and absurd, he can’t trust a boy from his dreams so much. Kokichi has always been against the idea of believing in someone blindly before knowing everything about them, and Shuichi might be hiding a lot more than he can imagine.

However, it seems like he let himself be weak for a while and now, he’s not sure he can fix it anymore. His heart never listens to him.

“When this world is no more

The moon is all we’ll see

I'll ask you to fly away with me”

If only Shuichi were real. If only he could magically appear near him right now and comfort him, reassure him that he would never leave. Shuichi is the only person he has ever been so close with, the only one who makes him feel safe and understood. They finish each other’s sentences, voice each other’s thoughts, guess each other’s feelings and emotions by the tiniest gestures. Kokichi just can’t see himself being like this with anyone else. He doesn’t want to be with anyone else at all.

The boy wraps his arms around himself without noticing.

“Until the stars all fall down

They empty from the sky

But I don’t mind”

As his mind gets foggy and his body gets weaker, he whispers along with the lyrics:

“If you’re with me,

Then everything’s alright”

And the music disappears, taking the real world away with it.

***

When Kokichi opens his eyes again, the first thing he sees is a white fog. It feels as though it’s everywhere, hovering above him like a huge cloud, and it’s so thick that it would probably be extremely easy to get lost in it without a chance to be found. Something keeps touching and tickling the boy’s arms and legs, lightly and carefully. Once Ouma’s senses return to him, he finally looks around and finds himself lying on the grass, surrounded by white flowers. Their petals look like bird wings.

Orchids. Egret orchids. Kokichi recognizes these flowers right away. They appeared in the latest biology test, the one he copied from Gokuhara. He silently praises his memory for keeping such random things on his mind and gets up slowly.

A small hill is floating in the fog like a lonely island in the sea. The pale blanket of teal grass and the same-looking flowers is covering it all over. The colors look mismatching as if someone clumsily stitched a few pictures together in photoshop without fixing a single inconsistency. This site is painfully familiar, but something feels terribly off about it.

Ouma scans the hill with a suspicious glare until his eyes stop at a certain object. In the middle of the hill, he sees a stump left from a seemingly wide, big tree.

His breath hitches. It’s the place where he first met Shuichi. There was that tree with a swing. The swing was broken, and Shuichi tried to warn him not to sit on it. The grass was bright green, and the sunlight was nearly blinding.

And now… it’s like this.

Kokichi feels as though the thick fog around him makes its way right inside his chest, and his heart gets lost in panic and uncertainty.

Throughout all 7 years of their shared dreams, there hasn’t been a single time they would be thrown into the same location. What’s even more worrying is that it’s the exact place where it all started, but it looks so desaturated and lonely that the boy can’t help but feel worried. This definitely has a deeper meaning, and it doesn’t seem to be optimistic nor promising.

Where is Shuichi?

Before his panic intensifies, Kokichi feels the familiar arms wrap around him and tug him closer, someone’s nose already buried in his hair.

“Found you,” Shuichi’s panting voice sounds just as uneasy as Ouma feels. “I got scared for a moment.”

Good. He is safe.

The shorter boy lets himself drown in the embrace and closes his eyes with relief. He needs to calm down and gather his thoughts, and Shuichi’s arms are the best place to do so. Kokichi carefully covers his friend’s hands with his palms, and Saihara laces their fingers together. Even though they haven’t even seen each other’s faces yet, it already feels safe enough. Bit by bit, all dark thoughts and doubts from the earlier melt away.

They spend a few minutes in comforting silence, catching their breaths. Ouma notices that his partner’s hands shake a little.

“Good to know you’re so happy to see me again.”

“Sorry if it was too sudden,” Shuichi mutters inside his messy purple hair. “This place made me nervous.”

 “No biggie!” Kokichi gently strokes his cold fingers in reassurance. “Even though I hate hugs, I can make an exception for you today.”

A timid chuckle tickles his ear. “Liar.” He doesn’t refute it.

The silence surrounds them again, so heavy that it hurts to listen to it. Following a strange, anxious instinct, Ouma tries to remember each and every sensation of Shuichi, to breathe in his disgusting coffee scent until it fills up his lungs, to brush fingers against his horribly cold skin, making sure to touch every centimeter of it, and it never feels enough.

Sadly, Saihara backs away pretty soon. Kokichi turns around, anxious for no reason, and finally meets eyes with his dream companion. The never-changing sight of him has truly become the dearest to Ouma. Dark-blue hair, always smooth and neatly brushed. Hazel eyes surrounded by long thick eyelashes, resembling rays of sunshine on childish drawings. A pale face, wearing the usual tired expression…

Wait. Kokichi flinches.

He doesn’t notice it right away, but the more he stares, the more he sees it. Shuichi’s skin looks weird. Although it has always been pretty pale, now it feels almost transparent, the white fog and the flowers piercing right through him as if he’s a ghost. A freezing waterfall of chills pours down on Kokichi, and he rushes to touch his friend once more, only for their hands to clash in a sudden, anxious movement. Saihara’s eyes glare at him with dismay.

“Ouma-kun, your skin!”

What does this mean?

“I see it on you too,” Kokichi barely keeps his voice from faltering. “You… you almost look like a ghost.”

“Y-yeah, but we can still feel each other, right?”

In the corner of his eye, Ouma sees the wind get stronger, bending the white orchids; their rustle sounds just as worried as his and Shuichi’s voices. He doesn’t understand why, but he takes it as a subtle warning. The uneasy feeling he tried to drown in his friend’s embrace comes back in a matter of seconds.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Shuichi continues, shaking. “First, they put us back where we started, then cut the tree, and now–”

Kokichi doesn’t let him finish. “Do you also think this is the place from the very first dream?”

“Well, yeah? This was the hill, and there was a big tree with broken swings on it… Oh, this is not good at all.”

Though they’ve been through a lot together, Ouma has never seen his friend so anxious. A shadow falls on his face as if he’s wearing that ugly cap again, he’s breathing heavily and loudly, his whole body is shaking like a fragile tree. He doesn’t seem to be just distressed by the suspicious atmosphere – he looks like he realized something truly awful.

And Kokichi knows what he’s thinking about. The scary guess is lingering somewhere at the back of his head, ready to step forward and destroy him mentally, but he stubbornly shakes it off and squeezes Saihara’s hands harder.

“Hey, don’t let stupid theories get to you yet!” he exclaims, trying to ignore anxiety growing in his own chest. “We never know what to expect, right? This may be just another trick by whatever or whoever controls this.”

Shuichi opens his mouth again, his half-transparent lips quivering, but Kokichi quickly puts a finger on them before he says anything.

“Shush,” he forces out a reassuring smirk. “Take a deep breath first, okay? I won’t understand a word if my beloved panics so much when he talks!”

The other boy obediently does as he’s told. Kokichi watches the shadow slowly disappear from his face, and it warms his worried heart.

“I’m sorry,” Shuichi whispers.

“It’s okay,” Ouma sighs. His arms wrap carefully around his friend’s wrists. “Now, what do you think all of this could mean?”

He doesn’t get an answer right away. Orchids seem to rustle even louder, filling the deadly silence.

“You see…” Shuichi hums. “Our dreams have been getting gradually shorter every night, and the locations have been getting smaller.”

His train of thought is exactly the same as Ouma’s.

“Now we’re back at where it all began, but even this place has changed. It seems like we’ve been getting closer and closer to the end, and now… we’re finally here.”

The last words echo painfully in Kokichi’s head.

“The end?”

His biggest concern, his scariest guess, his worst idea – he watches it slip from his beloved’s lips, and it stings him right in the heart. The hill disappears from under his feet, leaving the fog to swallow him into the unknown.

“I’m sure it’s not the end, Saihara-chan!” an unsure smile curls Kokichi’s lips. He knows Shuichi might still be uneasy, so he does his best to hide his own concerns. “Maybe it’s not even the same place, you know?”

This can’t be their last time together, can it? They can’t just lose a bond like that, right?

“…But, if it really is the end…” Kokichi can’t bring himself to finish the sentence, knowing well that his voice will falter. Shuichi’s fingers find his own.

“…Let’s make the most of it, shall we?” the taller boy mutters. His voice sounds a little stronger than before. “Honestly, it doesn’t even matter that much. I would spend every night with you as my last.”

These words go straight into Ouma’s chest, pouring into his heart with warmth like hot chocolate. He stares at his friend’s see-through face and wonders what would happen if he finally stopped caring about everything holding him back from giving in to emotions – at least just this once.

“I-it will be very awkward to meet each other again after saying goodbye, though,” Shuichi adds sheepishly. The blush on his cheeks colors the fog behind him in pastel pink; this small detail somehow makes Kokichi push himself harder and widen his reassuring but fake smile. They’re still there. They might be wrong about all of this. There’s no time to lose and no place to be weak or vulnerable.

“Why would we ever say goodbye, then?” he pulls his companion closer to drag him up the hill. “Let’s just promise to never-ever leave each other! You’re good at keeping promises, aren’t you, Saihara-chan?”

Shuichi doesn’t answer but follows his lead.

Once he starts walking up the hill, hand-in-hand with his confused partner, he notices how fatigued his body feels. As though the senses are slowly returning to him already, and he might wake up any minute. Kokichi notices the other boy moving weirdly – could Shuichi feel this way too? Maybe that’s why they both look transparent in each other’s eyes.

That might also mean they won’t stay here for a while tonight. If this is really their final time together, which feels both stupidly wrong and terribly right, they don’t have much time to settle everything down. There are still so many things Kokichi yearns to find out about his dream companion, and there is so much he wants to say.

He really should try to let himself loose today. Even if they meet again tomorrow, he needs to get some things off his chest.

But it’s scary… and is it even worth it?

They reach the top of the hill and stop right next to the stump. When Ouma turns around to check how high they got, he finds the bottom of the hill completely drowned in the fog. Seems like they can’t go back down anymore. The air becomes dryer and heavier. Kokichi hears something barely audible, resembling faint sounds of music from somewhere far away; it’s probably coming from the unreachable other side of the fog. He can’t recognize the melody at all, though it seems familiar.

Shuichi’s voice muffles it anyway.

“This sure brings back memories,” he lets out a shaky sigh and cautiously touches the wood. “I never thought we’d meet every night when I first saw you. So many things have happened since then… it’s crazy to think about.”

His hand squeezes Kokichi’s so hard that it hurts, but Kokichi doesn’t mind that at all.

“Yeah,” the purple-haired boy snickers weakly. “And I toootally didn’t believe you were just a subject of my imagination.”

A soft chuckle slips from Saihara’s lips. “I thought so too, for quite a while… I used to read books all the time, so it wasn’t a surprise for me to see such an interesting person in my dreams. But after you appeared again and again, and when you talked about yourself so confidently, I questioned everything.”

The melody gets a little louder and brings a familiar voice singing along with it. Ouma finds himself staring at their hands locked together and realizes that Shuichi’s skin has become even more transparent.

“I still do, to be honest.” Another shaky sigh. “We’ve never learned what it is exactly, have we?”

“I believe it’s called soulmates,” Kokichi claims. “I’ve read it in some random old book from a famous author.”

Shuichi definitely realizes he lied about the book, yet doesn’t refute it. Oh, that would be such an embarrassing lie to cover for.

“Soulmates?” he echoes pensively, and the shorter boy feels his head tilt closer to his side. “That sounds beautiful. Can soulmates not meet in real life at all? Did you read anything about it in that book?”

Kokichi remembers Gokuhara’s story and bites his lip. “Not really. It said there were many possibilities but didn’t cover any specific situation.”

Orchids mockingly tickle his ankles. The sound of music gets closer, grows stronger.

And so do his feelings, all bottled-up and sealed somewhere deep in his racing heart.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter,” he blurts out without thinking, voice higher than usual. “I still don’t understand why I can’t meet the person I want to see the most. It’s unfair.”

Shuichi’s fingers twitch in his. “I thought about it a lot and couldn’t find any crucial reason, either,” he mumbles. “Maybe we can meet after all. We should just keep trying.”

Kokichi lifts their see-through hands up in front of his partner’s face. His heart throbs in his chest so painfully that it’s getting hard to breathe and keep his composure. Saihara’s face gets blurry and loses its shape in front of his eyes.

“Do we even have time for trying? We’ve been doing this for weeks, and now we don’t even know if we’ll ever dream together next night!”

Before he can embarrass himself any further, he feels the other boy’s hands let go of his own.

“Ouma-kun. Will you trust me if I say I’ll find you no matter what?”

This question immediately snaps Ouma out of it, and he freezes, watching nearly invisible arms gently land on his shaking shoulders.

“W-what?”

Long cold fingers, looking as light as air, grip the shorter boy firmly and tenaciously.

“Will you believe me if I promise you I’ll find a way to meet you in real life?”

Shuichi’s eyes stare right inside his own with such a determination that Kokichi forgets how words work. Unexplainable confidence radiates from his half-transparent, usually shy figure, and something warm – warmer than ever before, probably hotter than the sun itself – shines in his gaze, blinding Ouma.

“You said I always stick to my word, didn’t you? So I want you to trust me with this, Ouma-kun. Especially…” Saihara’s lips twitch, and it feels like he wants to turn away, avert his gaze, hide behind his dark-blue bangs or long eyelashes, but he still continues. “Especially since you made me feel this way.”

Words finally find their way back to Kokichi’s lips, and he nearly chokes on them.

“Feel what way?”

The melody gets louder. He can almost recognize the words, but Shuichi’s voice – clear and loud for his invisible lips – distracts him from it.

“Determined. Persistent. Even… confident in myself,” the boy breathes out softly. “You’ve always been there for me, you’ve always listened to my stories and ramblings, and you’ve always… accepted me for who I am. You were the first person to call me beautiful. You were the first person I felt comfortable sharing my interests and thoughts with. But that’s not all.”

Each word shoots Kokichi right in the heart and makes it bend, break, hurt, then pick up the pace and revive again. It’s probably easier now, since the target is out in the open, hidden poorly in his see-through body. Right now, under this warm, persistent gaze, Kokichi truly feels as if he’s being read like a comic book, and it’s so scary, but so reassuring that he can’t decide how to react.

Shuichi’s skin disappears completely, leaving only the outlines of his slender fingers as he cups the other’s blushing cheek and brushes them gently against his skin.

“You’re the reason why I’m so eager to uncover the truth behind this. Ouma-kun, you…” his voice gets quieter, so intimate and adoring that it brings tears to Kokichi’s eyes, and he quickly drops his gaze down to his feet, staring at white orchids whispering between each other. Never in his life has he heard anyone talk to him this way. “You’re the most interesting, fun, and quick-witted person I’ve ever met – even if only in my dreams. Despite all hardships and doubts that we have to go through, I cherish and admire you so much that I feel lucky to have this connection to you.”

This must be a dream, Kokichi thinks, then chuckles bitterly in his head as the realization hits him.

He works up the courage to meet his eyes with Saihara again, only to find the tiny teardrops gathering on his long, pretty bottom eyelashes. His heart skips a beat.

“Ouma-kun, you… you mean everything to me.”

Shuichi stops for a moment because his voice begins to falter. He blinks a few times, visibly struggling not to tear his watery eyes away, while Ouma feels like he’s going to burn alive any minute. His own lips start quivering, and a sad, half-scared, and half-grateful mewl gets stuck in his throat.

He absolutely shouldn’t cry. Shuichi might not even be real.

But when Shuichi bites his lip and goes on, his voice turned into a whisper,

“That’s why I don’t want to leave things like this, and I’m going to find you whatever it takes. Okay?”

Kokichi realizes he might as well cry right there.

And even before he realizes that, he feels hot water streaks stream down his invisible face. Some tears fall right on Shuichi’s fingers still caressing his cheeks.

“Saihara-chan…” Ouma can barely hear himself through the loud sound of his own heartbeat pumping in his ears. “How can you say all of this? This is just unfair.”

“Unfair?” Shuichi’s breath hitches.

For a moment, Kokichi’s cautious mind screams at him to stop. He hasn’t found out any truth about Shuichi. He doesn’t know if it’s all real, if Shuichi lives in the same country, time, world as him. He doesn’t have any reason to call this imaginary boy, with an already invisible body, trustworthy.

But it might be their last chance. And he has a feeling that, if he doesn’t say this now, he will never be able to.

So he takes a deep breath and lets his feelings guide him further.

“I… I know there’s not much of a chance for us to meet. There must’ve been a reason why we couldn’t have done it sooner. But when you say all these stupid words, I– I want to believe you.”

He gives up on his mask and lets it be as transparent as Shuichi’s worried face in front of him.

“I want to trust you, Saihara-chan. It’s not a lie, I really do. Because…”

He lets the tears burn his face, lets his voice quiver and change with every word, lets his chest hurt with each breath, and it’s all incredibly painful, scary, meaningless.

But at the same time, it’s everything he ever wanted.

“I like you, okay?” He watches Shuichi’s eyes spark up, gaining more color, and sees his own reflection in them, surprisingly vivid and clear, with emotions painting his face all over and tears making it glow. “You mean everything to me too. I want to stay with you forever, wherever it is.”

“Ouma-kun…”

Finally, he lets himself get closer to Shuichi, grab his hands in the greediest way, like a thief holds onto his precious treasure while fleeing the scene, and let out everything, absolutely everything that has been tearing him apart all this time. His mouth stays wide open as he cries louder. His tears turn into waterfalls. When Saihara pulls him into a tight embrace, he shamelessly buries his sobbing face in the folds of his barely visible shirt and listens to his heartbeat – just as unsteady as his own, alive and real.

“I feel so lonely without you,” he weeps. “I just wish you were always there. I don’t want you to disappear.”

Shuichi places a slow kiss on his forehead, brushing his messy purple hair away gently. “I won’t disappear. I like you too, more than anyone or anything else in the world. And I promise you I won’t leave you alone.”

I know you will, Kokichi thinks to himself and bites his tongue to hold back a howl, I know I’ll be alone again. I know you can’t keep this promise. But…

“I will look for you too. We’ll find each other,” he mutters. Shuichi’s fingers draw comforting circles on his back.

Even if it’s a lie…

Ouma sees the fog rising faster, almost reaching the top of the hill, and squints his eyes as hard as he can. The sounds of music finally reach him, and he recognizes the song he was listening to before going to sleep. It was probably left on loop, so he’s hearing from the other side. He might wake up soon. And he doesn’t want that at all.

His hands frantically grip Shuichi’s invisible shirt, so tightly that he gets scared he might tear it for a moment, and his tears pour harder.

“You’re the only one I trust so much. I don’t want you to go away,” he breathes out, sobbing.

“I won’t go away,” Shuichi’s soft voice warms up his ear.

“Please never do.”

“Never.”

They pull away from the hug to look at each other again. Kokichi sees the same tear streaks glowing on Saihara’s transparent cheeks, and for some reason, it eases the pain in his chest. If they feel the same way, there’s nothing to be afraid of, right?

“And no matter what happens next… You must never-ever forget me for the rest of your life, okay?”

 “How could I forget the one who stole my heart?” Shuichi smiles through the tears; these words make Kokichi’s breath hitch for a moment, and he presses his hand against the other’s chest.

“T-that’s right!” he chuckles, catching his own tears on his lips as they stretch in a wide, sincere smile. “I stole your heart. It’s mine forever now, and I won’t give it back.”

“Yeah,” cold fingers tangle in his purple locks. “It’s yours. Forever.”

Kokichi believes it without a doubt.

He finds himself even closer, only a few inches away from Shuichi’s face, and he remembers that dream in that cheap and ugly love hotel and how much he wanted to kiss him but never did, and, using this short moment of silence between them, he launches forward and clumsily captures Saihara’s lips with his own.

They both taste like tears, salty and melancholic, but as soon as Shuichi presses their bodies together and Kokichi’s hands wrap around his neck, it becomes the sweetest kiss they could ever wish for. It’s warm, and eager, and careful, and so tender that it muffles the music and swallows the world around them in a flinch. Kokichi frees one hand and buries it in Shuichi’s soft, always neatly brushed hair. Shuichi tilts his head, deepening the kiss. Kokichi feels their hearts clash through their invisible chests and beat in unison, fast and excited. Shuichi’s fingers slowly trace Kokichi’s prominent backbone.

Oh, they should’ve done it back in the hotel. They were made to kiss each other.

Ouma doesn’t remember how his beloved companion’s fingers travel from his back to his jawline, or how his own hands drop to rest on Shuichi’s cheekbones. He feels warm all over as if someone in the real world covered him with another, softer blanket, and his chest is so light that he can’t recall the pain that was ready to tear it apart only minutes ago.

“Does Ouma-kun know this feeling? When your chest feels so light and you can’t stop thinking about someone?”

He does. He’s so in love that it’s stupid.

In love with the boy he met in dreams and has never seen in the light of the day. The boy he fought aliens and beasts with, spent hours talking about nothing in imaginary cafés and parks, traveled through worlds and planets with, had so much fun that real life could never compare with everything he felt with him.

In love with Saihara Shuichi, the detective apprentice with the prettiest eyes and the most charming smile.

And nothing can ever take Shuichi away from Kokichi after everything they’ve been through.

When they’re completely out of breath, they finally break apart from the kiss. Their eyes meet, glowing brighter than ever, and they’re wearing matching bittersweet smiles on their transparent faces. In the corner of his eye, Kokichi sees the fog slowly surrounding them, approaching their fragile figures like a predator on a hunt, ready to swallow them any moment. They probably have a couple of minutes, no more.

Judging by Shuichi’s face, he realized that too. Dumb fog. Way to ruin the mood.

“Seems like we’re gonna wake up soon,” the young detective sighs shakily. His lips are plump and glittery from the kiss, and Kokichi can’t help but lock his eyes on them, not caring about being caught anymore.

“Yeah,” he mimics the sigh. “But we made a promise, right?”

“Right. We’ll do anything to reunite, no matter what happens.” Saihara blinks away the new tears. “And if we meet again tomorrow as if nothing happened, well… I guess we can kiss again.”

That would be too good to be true, but Kokichi doesn’t let the tiny sparks of hope go out just yet.

“Ew, gross! You’re a terrible kisser, I don’t want to kiss you anymore!” he blurts out, earning an affectionate chuckle.

“Doesn’t practice make perfect?”

“Then find me in the real world and try again!”

Ouma feels his fingers twitch like they usually do before he wakes up. The orchids merge with the fog that’s nearly reaching their feet.

Shuichi gently tucks a wild strand of purple hair behind his ear, looking at him with a gaze filled with love. “I will find you, Kokichi,” he whispers. “I promise.”

Kokichi’s heart skips a beat, and a happy, excited smile appears on his face without him noticing.

“I trust you, Shuichi,” he breathes out and feels shivers run down his spine from saying this name out loud. “And kiss me again, please.”

“As you wish.”

Not losing any second, Shuichi leans in for another kiss, and Kokichi yearningly reciprocates, trying hard to remember every tiny feeling and emotion that comes with it. As the fog reaches them, he closes his eyes and lets himself fall into oblivion right in his dream lover’s embrace.

The warmth doesn’t go away for a long time.

***

Kokichi wakes up in tears and can’t stop them for the rest of the day. As if someone left the faucet on inside his eyes, and it’s ready to flood his entire house.

He cries until his eyes get sore, having locked himself up in the room. So many emotions torment him at once, and they all hurt and ache in every part of his body just as though he’s spilling his guts out. Kiibo and Miu receive a message that he’s sick and won’t come to school anytime soon. The day drags on like the most boring movie, seconds feel like hours, and hours feel like an eternity.

“I promise you I won’t leave you alone.”

Kokichi isn’t sure if he ever wants to go through something like this again.

***

When he wakes up the next day, he feels like he hasn’t slept at all. It was his first night without any dreams.

Empty, uneventful, boring darkness has been covering his eyes like a blackout curtain until he forces them open. It felt weird and too quick. As if he just blinked. Or daydreamed for a few minutes with nothing on his mind.

“Ouma-kun. Will you trust me if I say I’ll find you no matter what?”

He forces himself to go to class, and his tired heart keeps jumping from visions of Shuichi in every crowd and every car. While walking, he listens to “Everything’s Alright” on loop and swallows tears miserably. His eyes are always alert, ready to spot the familiar silhouette approaching him, the sweet promise still fresh and lively on his mind, but nothing happens.

His chest feels just as empty as the dream he didn’t see today.

***

If Kokichi could choose… well, he certainly can’t, so there’s no point in thinking about it.

“I will find you, Kokichi. I promise.”

It’s been a week or even more, and nothing has changed.

The boy glances at the clock. 8 am. His father has already left but probably forgot to wake him up, and now he’s late to school. Well, it’s not a big deal. School can survive without him.

Still, Kokichi gets up reluctantly, his body acting weird and too feeble. On wobbly feet, he walks up to the closet, gets dressed, goes to the bathroom for the usual, boring morning routine. Brushes his teeth for a solid 5 minutes because his mind keeps drifting somewhere far away, somewhere he can’t reach anymore, as though he’s trying to contact a spaceship that has crashed on another planet. His eyes stare blankly at the reflection in the mirror; sometimes it feels like his skin is going to become transparent, and someone else might appear next to him, pull him close, tickle his hips or tuck his hair behind his ears. Yet nothing happens. It’s not supposed to.

“I will find you…”

His head is filled with static, and it swallows the words he desperately wanted to remember.

The silence of the empty house is too heavy, so Kokichi goes outside. It’s a usual cloudy day. The spring air smells like rain and cherry flowers. People walk back and forth with serious, pensive faces, as if they have any purpose in their lives. Ouma lets his still weak feet carry him anywhere.

His heart aches. It feels squeezed like a lemon. Or crushed. Or shattered. He bites his lip, trying to ignore this pain, pretending he doesn’t feel anything since there were no emotions left from the night. Shuichi’s name is lingering on his lips, burns on the tip of his tongue like poison, but he doesn’t dare to say it out loud nor to let it in his empty head. He also stubbornly buries the tiny specks of hope tingling somewhere in his chest; hoping is dangerous, and he’s not in the mood for being disappointed anymore.

On these big streets with lots of people, he feels like the loneliest person in the world.

The static wouldn’t leave his head, so he takes out his phone and plugs in the earphones. Once the song he’s been listening to on repeat for days pops up on the screen, he hits “Play” and takes a deep breath. Just like the lyrics suggest.

“Short steps, deep breath…”

He keeps walking without any direction in mind. He passes parks, cafés, libraries. He’s just as lost as if he’s thrown into another unknown world without explanation or context, even though he’s lived here for all 18 years of his life.

“Why do my words

Always lose their meaning?”

He bumps into someone. Tall and slim, wearing a black jacket. Ouma pauses the song instinctively; his heart skips a beat for a moment, such a silly reaction. It’s just a stranger. However, something tells him he will react this way to certain people for a while.

The guy turns around, the wind playing in his chocolate-brown hair as he frowns. “Can I help you?”

He doesn’t seem very friendly. Kokichi grimaces, trying to make his lips quiver and squeezing crocodile tears out of his dried-out eyes.

“Sorry, I got lost and don’t know where to go!” he whines dramatically. “Can you please buy me a bottle of grape “Panta” to help me relieve stress?”

The stranger blinks in confusion. “Um, I don’t know how that’s… I mean, I have some orange juice?”

“I’m allergic to fruit,” Kokichi chokes out.

“Then why did you…?”

Gosh, this conversation is pointless. Why did he even bother to say anything?

“Anyways, I have to be somewhere in 5 minutes, gotta go!” Kokichi waves at the stranger with all his pretentious energy and leaves him behind as if nothing happened. “Bye-bye!”

He walks a little faster now.

“What I feel, what I say

There’s such a rift between them”

Fake smiles boost fake confidence. Kokichi feels some weird instinct yearning to lead the way and lets it guide him further. The streets get less recognizable, but it doesn’t bother him. His feet seem to have finally woken up and carry him forward with wider, stronger steps. Maybe he’ll end up finding something exciting today?

His heart hurts more for some reason.

“He said, “I can’t

Really seem to read you.”

He takes turns left and right until the road hits a dead end. The strange feeling brought him to a quieter, more remote area with just a few houses and a cheap-looking playground. He must’ve gone quite far without even noticing; as soon as Ouma realizes that, his feet begin to hurt in agreement. He should take a short break.

“I just stood there

Never know what I should do”

Although Kokichi finds a few benches on the way, the playground seems far more interesting to terrorize. The boy rushes there, looking hungrily at the swings. He notices a figure near the fence, but the person seems to be leaving, meaning there will be no witnesses and no judging eyes of adults to disturb his break. Perfect.

The lonely swing is painted in a dull, washed-out blue color and in all honesty, looks absolutely terrible. Even Kokichi’s evil heart feels bad for the children that have to play in this ancient place. No wonder there are no kids hanging around – they probably like staying at home, reading books or playing video games instead of this. Well, it’s all in Ouma’s favor, and he doesn’t care about some random children after all.

And so, Kokichi walks up to the swing, feeling weirdly excited and awfully tired. He tries to shake it, testing its stability, and it shakes with him. Hm. Doesn’t feel strong enough. Still, Kokichi considers himself pretty light, so that might not be a problem.

Suddenly, something makes him retreat and pause the song again.

It’s not another stranger or anything of a sort. It just feels like, for a moment, the air around him thickens and freezes, and he loses his breath. No, it’s not just the air – the whole world, the time itself seems to stop around Kokichi, and a tsunami of unexplainably strong emotions drowns him momentarily in its invisible trap. All of that in a mere second and all of that makes him suffocate. His head starts spinning. His vision gets blurry. His lungs burn. He needs to sit down.

And as he bends slightly to finally flop down on the swing, a hand lands on his shoulder.

A cold hand with slender fingers that smell disgustingly of coffee, with a black striped jacket peeking from behind Kokichi.

“Um, excuse me…?”

The boy shudders.

His heart races in his chest like a trapped bird. His knees buckle under the weight of his suddenly weakened body. He’s paralyzed by the touch.

The soft, awfully familiar voice mumbles the awfully familiar words into his back.

“Don’t. It’s broken. You’ll fall.”

Kokichi turns around.