Chapter Text
Japan was saved, Saiki Kusuo was once again a psychic, and everything could finally get back to normal.
Take, for instance, Saiki’s neighbor. Teruhashi Kokomi. Without his powers, he’d been bewitched and nearly said “offu” to her. Now he was back to seeing her for what she was– skin, muscles, and bone. And for how average her marrow was, you wouldn’t think she would feel the need to be perfect all the time.
You’d be wrong.
Saiki could hear it in her frazzled thoughts.
I made sure to wear the same shirt, right? And pants too? I’m even making the same facial expression.
Same shirt as… oh, she must be trying to recreate what led up to Saiki’s near mistake. Not going to happen, as things were now back to normal, and he was back to being an all powerful psychic.
Kokomi, you’re pathetic. You have fans to impress, after all. You’ve hardly smiled or waved at all today!
She’s a princess now? I don’t know why she tries so hard to be perfect anyway. She always gets her way in the end. She could come to school in a potato sack and everyone would accept it as a new trend.
The pencil Saiki was pretending to do homework with floated up in the air. He caught it before anyone noticed.
That was the single obstacle in everything going back to normal: his powers. Ever since he reclaimed his title as a psychic, they’ve been going out of whack. An unintended teleport here, an accidental shapeshift there. Nothing the banana can’t fix. His brother assured him that the glitches should stop soon.
What could possibly be going on inside his head?
He was distracted from her internal moping long enough for her to switch back to pining. If only she knew. She would probably avoid him for the rest of their lives. As temping as the idea was, she could also start World War Three just from her tears. Luckily it would never come to that because he was the mind reader here.
After an awkward amount of unreciprocated eye contact, the last bell finally rang. It was a Friday night, meaning two blissful days of coffee jelly and crappy games awaited. But first, to dodge the obstacles.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder, already prepacked, while Teruhashi was left scrambling to keep up. One down, but so many more to go.
Nendo, Kaido, and Kuboyasu were already approaching. Luckily, he had already prepared a plan for this attack. He telepathically reminded Kaido about that cool abandoned building he saw earlier. It worked like a charm.
Kuboyasu and him spun around before they ever spotted Saiki. The old trick wouldn’t work on Nendo as he didn’t have thoughts to redirect. Time for a classic then. He turned invisible and snuck right past him. He very nearly collided with Hairo sprinting down the hallway to meet him, but Saiki heard him just in time. One invisible back fip later he was in the clear.
Time to go home.
“Hey Saiki!”
A whole other group of variables were left unaccounted. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
“I don’t see him anywhere," Aiura commented as she scanned the halls.
“If Toritsuka can see him and Aiura can’t, then it's safe to assume he’s using invisibility. Since he’s antisocial and uses said power to avoid people, and the power is deactivated when he comes into contact with another person, then I’d guess he’s pressed up against a wall. The left one has two water fountains on it which would make it the better hiding place of the two, but our psychic has always had an aversion to germs. Therefore, he’s on the right wall. Probably standing about there.”
Akachi was scarily perspective as usual. He would’ve pointed exactly where Saiki was standing, but he underestimated the psychic's natural aversion to others. The second Akachi opened his mouth, Saiki had safely teleported to a nearby alleyway.
He was now happily eating a coffee jelly after a successful mission. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the universe let him off early today. Each encounter was easily avoided.
As if all of Saiki’s bad luck was saving up for something big.
Teruhashi Kokomi had gone to bed exhausted last night, and was pleased to realize she woke up early. She could go back to sleep for a few more hours, her bed was warm for once, life was good.
Unfortunately, that was when the pleasant surprises stopped.
For one thing, she felt off. Physically she felt longer, like someone had stretched her over night. Briefly she worried that she might not be short enough to stay within the beauty standard. She tried to ignore the thought.
Sadly, it kept nagging at her.
She decided to get up and make sure everything was fine. Why wouldn’t it be, anyway? She had always been perfect and would always be perfect. This was just to quiet the small headache forming at the back of her mind.
When she stood she felt again like her legs were too long. Attempting to take a step, she nearly fell over. Her center of gravity was completely off.
She hardly had time to process this as she realized what stopped her from falling.
The fact that she was levitating in the air. She landed back on her feet gracefully as if she did it all the time.
For the sake of her sanity, she was going to pretend that didn’t happen.
Back to the height situation. She attempted to open her bedroom door but found no door at all. Weird. She usually knew where her door was, even in complete darkness like this.
She felt along the walls until she found the actual door. Upon exiting, she turned a hallway light on. This wasn’t her house.
This was Saiki’s house.
What was she doing in Saiki’s house?
Upon reaching the bathroom and looking in the mirror, she let out a startled gasp..
Saiki was right behind her— wait, that wasn’t right— where was she?
He was the only one in the mirror. Teruhashi touched her nose. Mirror Saiki touched his nose.
She patted her head. Her hand caught on something at the same second his reflection touched his hairpins.
Her brain nearly short circuited. She was in her crush’s body!
This had to be a dream. That would explain the floating, right? And she had gone to sleep thinking about him. That was the only logical answer.
But upon pinching her— his— check, she could feel the pain. And after putting on his signature pair of glasses, he definitely looked like the Saiki she knew.
And weirdly, she could hear his mother from all the way upstairs.
Ku’s up early, I hope he didn’t have a nightmare. Dear, are you alright up there?
It was like she was hearing her thoughts. And like she was trying to think at Saiki.
Maybe I was wrong. Oh, Kusuke might have broken in again! It’s been so long since I’ve talked to him. I better make sure he’s not bothering his brother so early.
Someone… broke in? Was she hallucinating voices in her head? Could it be that Saiki was schizophrenic?
A sudden knocking on the bathroom door jarred her from her thoughts. “Oh, it is you Ku! Are you doing okay? Usually you try to sleep in as much as you can.”
Teruhashi wished she could go invisible, or go somewhere else, or do anything but be in this exact moment. She pictured being Saiki more than she’d ever admit to understand why he didn’t fawn over her like everyone else, but she never expected to really be in this position.
Saiki’s mom always seemed nice. It’s not like Teruhashi had much of a reference on what parents should be like, but she was always good natured. Maybe she could help?
She unlocked the door and let her in.
The woman entered the cramped space and looked around. “Are you invisible right now?” If I did something to hurt your feelings then let’s talk about it.
Invisible? What was she talking about?
She got the awful feeling that she knew exactly what that meant when Saiki’s mom looked right through her. She couldn’t see Saiki’s hands.
The woman reached out and waved her arm around the room until it brushed Teruhashi’s shoulder. Suddenly she could see herself— or rather Saiki’s body— again.
“There you are. What’s wrong, Ku? You aren’t acting like yourself.” Kurumi had such genuine concern for her son. Why couldn’t her mom ever look at her with something other than expectation?
She was taking too long to respond. She could go along with the lie and try to make it back to her house, but she trusted Saiki’s mom.
”I’m not Saiki.”
That got her attention.
Instead of looking angry, Kurumi’s concern deepened. “Oh my! Then who are you?”
Teruhashi was surprised that she believed her. “I’m Teruhashi Kokomi.” Before she could stop herself, she continued, “I don’t know how I got here or why I look like your son. I’m sorry.”
”Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong.”
Kuharu couldn’t possibly know that was the first time someone had ever said that to her. She felt like crying.
”Everything will be okay. But before we find a solution, there’s something you need to know. Kusuo has physic powers.”
Teruhashi froze. He had… what?
”Telepathy, as I’m sure you’ve already realized.” Saiki had mind-reading powers. He could have used them on her at any point. He almost certainly had. Does that mean he knows that I…
”He also has the abilities of teleportation, pyrokenisis, telekenisis, shapeshifting, and several others.” Upon noting her reaction she continued, “I’m not telling you this to scare you. It’s important you know what you’re capable of. One of his more obscure powers is the ability to swap bodies. I’ve only ever seen him use it once. He was able to switch back quickly, but he made the conscious decision to switch in the first place.”
Saiki’s done this before? Did that mean that he did this intentionally?
”Recently he’s been having some trouble with powers, and I’m guessing this is a result. It was probably a mistake, but I’m sure we can get it fixed together.”
Her head was spinning. She nearly missed the last part of Kurumi’s speech.
”I know you’re scared. My son doesn’t show his emotions often, but he does have them. He’s probably just as worried as you are.”
Teruhashi remained fully still, deciding that maybe if she wished hard enough, she would wake up back as herself. It did not work.
Saiki awoke to find that he was not in his bed. He could tell immediately. The comforter was all wrong, the sheets felt too light and airy, and for the first time in a long time he felt cold. He attempted to activate pyrokinesis. It did not work.
Chalking this up to it being too early to function, he turned in the sheets.
His proportions were all wrong.
He felt like Kuriko. It wouldn’t be the first time he accidentally shapeshifted in his sleep, but it was very rare since he got his limiters.
Speaking of, where were his limiters?
He touched the top of his head and neither were there. His hand instead touched soft hair much longer than Kuriko’s. In the darkness he couldn’t see the color, but he had a pretty good guess.
He needed a mirror.
Sluggishly he got up, feeling an unusual strain from whatever form he was in right now. He tripped on an extension cord and promptly fell to the ground.
Using his powers, he attempted to levitate back up to ground level. Nothing happened.
He just got them back. Of course they were acting up— he just needed to be patient.
But being patient is hard, and getting up like a normal person was much easier. He had enough experience being normal to last a lifetime.
While he didn’t know the layout of this house very well, he did know where the bathroom was. He twisted the door handle he guessed would be there, flicked on a light switch, blinked at the resulting beam of light, and confirmed his suspicion.
He was in the body of Teruhashi Kokomi.
A normal person would be panicking. Luckily, Saiki knew what to do. Believe it or not, something like this had happened before.
When Saiki was in middle school, he woke up one day to find everyone around him speaking English. He had accidentally swapped bodies with his brother. Disgusting. Luckily, he was able to switch back before his brother ever woke up.
He once even did it intentionally for his father (see episode 1 of The Disaterous Life of Saiki K: Reawakened).
Hopefully Teruhashi was still blissfully asleep and would wake up with no idea this ever happened. Enough of this, time to get back to being himself.
He commanded his powers to put him back.
Nothing happened.
His powers had been glitchy ever since he tried to get rid of them and subsequently claimed them back. He would just try again and go on with his day.
Nope.
Maybe he should go check on his body. But crossing his eyes only gave him a headache. Teleportation got him no where.
He hasn't been able to get his powers to start working since he woke up.
And now that he was more alert, he realized he hadn't heard any thoughts all morning.
His powers were gone.
Again.
And this time, not only were they gone of their own accord, but there was nothing he could do to get them back. He couldn’t look into the future to see when they’d be returning or even reverse time on himself to fix the problem. He was trapped. And of all people, he was stuck as the world’s best attention magnet. The mirror reflected a very panicked Teruhashi. Her hands were shaking, and when he looked down his were too.
He was his polar opposite. He would be in the spotlight now with no way to protect himself. With as many stalkers as she had, how would he know if he was safe? And Teruhashi likely had his powers now— who knew what kind of havoc she could be wreaking? He would be powerless to stop her or reverse any of the damage.
Through his panic, he failed to notice a single tear fall down his perfect face.
He did, however, notice the lights being blocked by something above him, and look up just in time to see himself falling from the air.