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His fingers skim over the spines on the shelves in search of that one book he’s been itching to read. Usually, the bookstore he frequents has the latest editions to his favourite mystery series so there wasn't a need to go over to other bookstores until now. Recently though, the series has been skyrocketing since a movie director took an interest and made a movie out of it. It translates to eager fans getting their hands on the new editions as earliest as the day of their release to the local bookstores.
The sudden popularity is a massive boon to the series’ success and would likely lead to more books in the making. Regardless of how happy he is, Shuichi does feel a bit bitter about the unjust treatment. He has been following this series since the first edition, the author merely a novice at the time. For every new release, he was the first to buy them while everyone raved about the popular, illicit novels that were telenovela-worthy. He is one of the first among the many fans who knew firsthand of the struggles their favourite young author went through in their journey to make a series worthy to stand beside famous names like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven or Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. So, to suddenly find himself beaten by a gaggle of newcomers is a bit… demeaning, in a way.
That, or Shuichi is being dramatic. Aftereffects of dealing with a certain clown dictator on the daily it would seem.
He continues to peruse the shelves, meticulously combing his way through each line of ochre wood. He looks like he’s haunting the Mystery section, with the way he possessively scours through the books and scaring other book lovers from entering this part of the book cafe. No matter, he can deal with the grunt of the embarrassment after he finds his book.
And find them, he did. At the topmost of the remaining shelves is where his book lays waiting for him. With greedy hands, he quickly took it off the shelves and did a small victory dance – moving his hips and legs from side to side and clutching the newly acquired book against his chest. Shuichi smiles so hard that it stretches the skin on his face thin, unused to such a big gesture.
He turns and –
“Boo!”
“AHHHH!” He drops the book on the floor, pressed against the shelves and clinging for dear life, which wasn’t a good idea when a jolt of pain courses through him from the impact. Shuichi breathes heavily, calming down and stares at the cackling menace in front of him.
“Nishishi, oh wow!” Ouma ‘supreme leader, clown child, hazard to society’ Kokichi wheezes out, shaky on his legs from how colossal his laughter is that it burdens his petite body. “Didn’t know Shumai can move like that – or scream like that! It’s pretty cute, haha!”
His eye twitches, blood roaring as it fills up his cheeks with an embarrassing colour that resembles a firetruck, “…What are you doing here, Ouma-kun?”
Yes, what is this self-proclaimed supreme leader doing here, at Hope’s Peak Valley mall on a Saturday afternoon, anyway? Last time he checked, Ouma rejected his offer to hang out in the mall point-blank and refused to tell him why, citing himself busy on the weekends for some reason. Suspicious, like everything else about this man.
From how the other dressed in a uniform resembling a straitjacket every day for school to how he dressed himself today – a purple tracksuit that’s been pushed upwards, teasing a sliver of his toned(?) midriff and checker sweatpants. Shuichi looks down and sees the other’s worn sneakers and anklets before he comes back up. He lingers on his neck. The checker scarf Ouma is fond of wearing around his neck is noticeably absent.
Again, suspicious .
Aside from the few missing or obscured things at the moment, like his hands being held behind his back, he looks too… simple, almost normal. Yet, the whole outfit screams Ouma Kokichi . It wasn’t often he sees someone as flamboyant and outgoing as Ouma to wear something like that but here he is. It practically sets off the alarm bells in his head. Cogs turning with questions inside his head. He must have been obvious with his staring if Ouma starts to smile like that, all nonchalant and sweet and very dubious.
“Wha’cha thinking so hard there, detective Shumai?”
“Ah, I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here when you said you’re gonna be busy all weekend.”
“I am busy.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re busy.” Especially if he has the time to sneak up on Shuichi like this, he grumbles quietly.
“Are you calling me a liar, Shuichi?” The other bats his eyelashes – that’s longer and more colourful than usual?? what??? – innocent and coy when he’s anything but, “I wasn’t lying when I said I’m busy, honest truth!”
“Yeah? Then why are you here?” He circles back to the lingering question. “If you’re so busy that you couldn’t come with me here, that is.”
“Awww, are you still salty I broke this silly tradition of ours, my beloved?” Ouma snickers, “Well, don’t be! I’m here now, nishishi!”
Shuichi flinches and sniffs, “It’s not silly.”
“Yes, yes, whatever you say, Shumai.”
A scowl overtook him at the dismissal. Deciding it wasn’t worth his time or mental health trying to figure out the other man, Shuichi ignores him and leans down. He picks up his precious book from the plush carpet to bring it over to the counter up front. Ouma follows close behind him, chattering his ears away with his usual jargon.
“Oh, and by the way,” the leader cuts himself off while they walk out of the book cafe. A beatific grin graces his face that sends shivers down his spine. His gut feels like it’s free falling into a bottomless pit. “I’m hiding from the cops because I stole something! And since he’s here, that means Shumai’s my hiding spot and accomplice! Yay, isn’t this exciting!?”
“YOU WHAT?!”
“I can’t believe you, shoplifting in the middle of the day.”
“What? You rather I do it at night? Did it, done it. Booooooooring!! Plus, it was too easy for an awesome supreme leader like me. So, one day I thought, ‘Hey! Why not do this in the morning? With all the crowd and cops and whatnot. That’ll be more fun and less boring!’ so I did and here we are.”
“There are several offences to what you just said- Why would you- Are you- Oh forget it!” Shuichi huffs, “Just- Would it kill you to tell me which store you stole from? What did you take from there anyway?” Maybe if Ouma tells him what he stole, he could take a guess and find the store. It’s better than going blindly from one store to another.
“Hmm, lemme think…” Ouma puts on a thinking face, closing his eyes in concentration and it feels like Shuichi’s about to snap the longer the other man drags this out.
“Nope!”
“No? As in, ‘ No, I won’t tell you anything’ or ‘ No, it won’t kill me’ ?”
“Nope, as in I don’t remember! C’mon, Shuichi!! A benevolent leader such as yours truly is far too busy to remember boring stuff like that. It’s an insult, child’s play! How could you even suggest such a thing!!”
“Child’s play, he says…” Shuichi’s mind turns to static. He buries his face in his palms to quell down the noises he makes. It’s just as he feared. While he doubts the other forgot, Ouma would never let a simple task like this be solved that easily. It just isn’t in his nature. Rather, he’s willing to risk Shuichi’s blood pressure spiking until he collapses on the spot. It is situations like this that test his restraints where he is most thankful he self-practices in some level of patience (has to if he wants to be a detective) because if it were anyone else, Ouma won’t be leaving this mall unscathed.
What Shuichi would do, would've done to this little terrible terror if he’s anything like Momota. Or worse, Harukawa. It could've become his debut as a Homicide Detective, except he's the one doing the killing after letting his temper get the best of him and landing himself on death row. God, if his uncle sees him now, that man would've personally brought him back from the dead just so he can wring his neck and kill him again. He can hear his voice now, berating him for the sloppy work at hiding his tracks and getting himself caught.
Ugh, nightmares.
He casts a withering glare at the jester beside him, still trying to prove his point as if he didn’t nearly cause Shuichi to keel over right there and then. He’s absolutely tempted to leave the leader to himself, with how much he loves to listen to his own voice.
He sighs. Tired as he is, he knows himself too well – if he leaves now, the problem will end up bothering him more than it has the right to. And that’s not something he is willing to risk his reading time for. That said, he sucks it up and continues to drag the other around each store in the mall. He’s counting on Ouma getting bored in the first few minutes. He’s positive the other would tire himself hoarse and fess up the place he stole from. His pride, evening and mental stability depend on it!
Thirty minutes later, Shuichi gives up hope.
He’s slumped over his spot on the bench. It feels like he just came back from seeing a quack doctor and got half of his soul sucked out of him as payment. Which isn’t that far off. The person he’s hanging out with is an absolute quack. A quack sitting beside him on the bench, shamelessly enjoying the three scoops of ice cream that he haggled Shuichi to buy.
He sniffs, surrendering to his fate. He lets his mind wander as he listens to the soft piano playing in the background.
Not only does he have the misfortune of hanging out with a man as mad as the Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, Ouma just had to be a mooch on top of it. It’s pure madness that he considers him one of the closest people Shuichi has. Although…
The piano suddenly gets cut off mid-song, startling him from continuing that train of thought. Sitting upright, he looks around the central plaza. The people that muse around and about continue to move along the flow of the busy afternoon, unbeknownst to the sudden cutoff. Shuichi raises an eyebrow, curious before he turns to address his friend.
It is not strange to hear a song getting cut off, it happens. But the long pause makes him hesitant to believe the simple conclusion he ends up with. From the way, the others around him are starting to look around in confusion, Shuichi isn’t the only one who thinks that.
“...What’s going on?”
“Mmm, prolly technical problems? Y’know how that goes.” Ouma chirps, finishing off his cone as he stands beside him.
“True, but this seems intentional…”
“Ehhh.” he didn’t comment more on that when someone comes up to the middle of the plaza, looking as confused as everyone else. Though, it didn’t deter them in the slightest from being in the spotlight, with the way people avoid the centre like a plague, hiding under the floors and beams overcasting shadows. Shuichi thinks it’s weird but bold of them to stand out and thinks nothing more of it.
At least that’s what he tells himself, if not for the person’s next move.
As if on cue, the music suddenly comes back up, booming so loudly it startles everyone within the vicinity as the person suddenly moves along the music, tapping their feet and moving their limbs in a coordinated manner that corresponds with the music playing in the background. Then, more and more people slowly start to trickle away from the hidden crowd and join them.
It’s embarrassing how long it takes him to realise Shuichi is currently one of the lucky spectators to witness one of those new trends nowadays – a flashmob, if he recalls Akamatsu calling it during lunch at school a few days ago – coming to life right in front of him. And he gets why they are so popular.
It’s spellbinding, how the dancers attract their attention so easily with the way they move their limbs, going one-two, one-two-three-four, moving to the rhythm in sync before splitting in between to give way for a few dancers to jump and cartwheels and bounds endless energy on the spot, smiling so widely that their joy is limitless and infectious.
Shuichi can’t look away, he doesn’t dare look away for fear of missing out. The crowds around the dancing people cheer and clap and sing their awe to the crew, just as transfixed to the scene as he is. He is so focused on the performance, Shuichi forgets who he is with and why he is still in the mall when he got what he came for, the loud music further muddling his brain into mush.
As life would have it, it didn’t take him long to be reminded.
From the corners of his eyes, he sees his friend suddenly move, coming into view as he steps forward into his view, tracksuit off and tied around his waist, revealing the checker crop top he wears underneath, hair tied in a messy ponytail that’s tied with the missing checker scarf, his neck covered with a band of black in place of the scarf from when Shuichi failed to notice before.
His jaw slackens even further when Ouma blends with the dancers, so seamlessly that it looks natural for him to mingle, with a grin so voracious, that it shows how pleased he is and how much he’s having fun. He does a somersault to further prove it.
Shuichi realised a lot of things today – the mall is always packed full regardless of the day, the book cafe serves one of the best coffee he had, normal clothes look as good on Ouma as his usual clown core attires do. But none of them can top the awareness that comes with realising Ouma has been busy doing this . This amazing act, which took him days, weeks away from hanging out with him, comes to fruition when it ends with a standing ovation.
Shuichi now knows where he keeps getting those bruises and scrapes on his knees all this time.
The palm of his hands stings from how hard he claps them together but he never ceases his actions even as the group starts to dissipate. He watches them bow and disperse and integrate themselves back into the crowd, disappearing within the sea of people that are still clapping alongside him. It’s only when Kokichi bounces his way back to his side – sweaty with a heaving chest but a smile so wide, he can’t help but reciprocate – that Shuichi stops clapping.
“That was amazing, Ouma-kun!”
“Nishishi, were you amazed, Shumai? I know I’m amazing but it doesn’t hurt to hear more!”
“No, really. You guys were incredible! I didn’t know you could dance!”
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, dearest Shumai.” He says so cryptically, a creepy grin stretching over his face, “Besides, if I had told you, it would’ve ruined the surprise, and that’s no fun!”
“Still!! You were amazing out there, Kokichi!” He didn’t need to ask him if the days they spent apart were due to this – the way Ouma preens at the compliment proves it.
“But of course, I am! Why would I lie? Also, see? I told you! I wasn’t lying to Shuichi when I told him I was busy! So, as an apology, I want him to treat me to the arcade and skate rink!”
“Haha, you still have some leftover energy from that? I thought you’d wanna go home by now.”
“And what? Leave Shumai to read his boring book all day in peace? Absolutely not! Besides, I’m already being plenty nice. You would be grovelling on the ground and begging for forgiveness otherwise.”
“Would you now?”
“I would so!!!”
Shuichi chortles, “Alright, fine. Let’s go to the arcade after we return whatever that you stole. I haven’t forgotten about that just because you went off to dance, Ouma-kun.” He laughs again when the other whines, fondness blooming inside him as they start to walk over to the escalator.
“Awww, you’re no fun! But about that, I just remembered something!”
“Why does it sound like something I won’t like…?”
“Hehe. I lied! I didn’t steal anything! Surprise!!”
“WHAT? ” Screw these sappy feelings. He wants to drop this problematic child somewhere far away from him and leave him alone to go home. So all this while they’ve been wasting time going around the mall, painstakingly sacrificing Shuichi’s pride just by associating with Ouma, it’s all for nothing?? Unbelievable. Shuichi should’ve left him when he had the chance.
Shuichi merely swallows his wounded pride and irritation down and lets the other man pull him towards the arcade.