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Rantaro strummed his guitar one last time before setting it down for the night.
First-year exams were over, summer was almost here, and like a try-hard, he was sitting alone in an empty practice room with his laptop open, staring at a blank project file.
A birthday present.
That was all he was trying to make.
A song.
Something simple.
Something that said I know you.
The problem was that every time he started writing, it felt wrong.
Because how were you supposed to capture someone who could be irritating, hilarious, impossible, thoughtful, selfish, and kind - all at once - in a single song?
He had met Kokichi during Freshers’ Week and, at the time, hadn’t expected much to come of it. University was full of people who drifted in and out of your life - you would spend a few weeks getting to know them, then they would vanish. You might greet them occasionally in a corridor or at a bar, but the friendship would never go beyond that.
Somehow, Kokichi had been the exception to this rule.
They went on nights out together, got into trouble together, and eventually ended up becoming the sort of friends who didn’t need to make plans because they always seemed to find their way back to each other. Kokichi’s favourite habit was sneaking through Rantaro’s window at ridiculous hours of the night, usually equipped with snacks and the insistence that whatever series they had started watching was “way too important” to leave unfinished.
The fact that they always ended up sleeping through their lectures the next morning was apparently a sacrifice worth making.
At first, Rantaro had thought that was all it was.
Friendship.
Maybe even something a little more protective than that - Kokichi had always reminded him of the younger sisters he’d left behind when he came to Manchester. The same melodramatic energy, the same tendency to make everything ten times more complicated than it needed to be.
Except Kokichi wasn’t his little brother, a fact Rantaro had only began to realise over the Christmas holidays.
A conversation with his sisters, which had started as nothing more than a casual catch-up, led to them noticing things he hadn’t, and after dessert, they cornered him in a room (yes all twelve of them) and pointed out the reverent way he talked about Kokichi, the way he smiled whenever his name appeared on his phone, the way he always seemed to have time for him no matter how busy he was.
Rantaro had laughed at first.
It couldn’t be that.
And he carried that belief with him into January and the majority of Spring term.
They spent more time together than they did apart, but that didn’t mean anything.
It was comfortable.
Familiar.
For the first time in his life, Rantaro actively craved the company of somebody else.
But that was what it was like having a best friend, right?
He managed to convince himself of this conclusion until one night out - during the penultimate week of term - when he saw Kokichi flirting with someone else.
It shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did.
Kokichi flirted with everyone. It was simply part of who he was. In fact, during their first interaction at a haphazardly thrown Freshers party hosted by some girl neither of them knew, Kokichi had immediately started calling Rantaro “pretty boy,” and after that ordeal was all over the music major had privately thought that if he weren’t as unflappable as he was, he would have been putty in the smaller boy’s hands.
So why did his stomach drop as he watched someone else experience this side of Kokichi?
Why did it suddenly feel like he was losing something he’d never actually had?
He tried to return to the assumption he’d been clinging to.
That Kokichi was just a friend.
That he was simply being protective, or overthinking things, or getting too attached to having someone around who made university feel less lonely.
But his logic quickly fell flat.
Because Rantaro had cared about people before.
He loved his sisters. He missed his friends when they weren’t around.
But this… this was somehow different.
This was noticing every little thing Kokichi did without meaning to.
The way he tapped his fingers when he was thinking. The way he pretended not to care when he clearly did. The way he made jokes at other people’s expense when conversations became too serious, like he was scared of what would happen if he let himself be sincere for too long.
This wasn’t just platonic affection.
It was something else.
And despite the relative simplicity of this conclusion, it took Rantaro until the Easter holidays to finally admit his feelings for Kokichi to himself - because once he gave into how he felt, there would be no going back to pretending that he saw Kokichi as just a friend.
Which was how, less than eight hours before Kokichi’s birthday, Rantaro found himself sitting on the floor of his room with Miu and Angie - the only two of Kokichi’s flatmates that the smaller boy actually interacted with, having labelled the others as “boring.”
Calling it an intervention might have been an exaggeration.
However, judging by how uneasy Rantaro felt once he started explaining himself, it seemed like a pretty accurate description.
“So,” Rantaro began, leaning back against his bed. “I have a problem.”
“You seek Atua’s eternal love?” Angie asked excitedly, clasping her hands together.
“Not exactly.”
“Oh…”
Her expression softened slightly.
“You need Angie’s help with something creative?”
Rantaro hesitated.
“Kind of?”
That was enough of a clue for the art student to piece everything together.
“Angie knew it! This is about Kokichi!”
Miu, who had been scrolling through her phone, finally looked up.
“Wait, are you telling me you dragged us over here because you can’t write a song for your boyfriend?”
Rantaro nearly choked.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Fine. Your prized twink, then.”
Rantaro ignored that.
“I just don’t know what to write. Every time I start, it feels wrong. Everyone contains multitudes, but Kokichi is-”
“A little shit.”
“Complicated.”
Unlike Miu’s completely unserious response, Angie looked genuinely touched.
“That is so sweet!”
Rantaro blinked.
“Sweet?”
“Of course!” she said. “You’re trying to put your feelings into music. That is a very beautiful thing.”
Miu butted in.
“Or it means he’s trying to use music to get his dick wet, like every other half-wit at this institution?”
Rantaro glared at the engineering student, but it was Angie who rebuffed her comment.
“Miu.”
“What? I’m not wrong.”
“Rantaro is trying to do something kind for our friend.”
“Fine.”
Miu threw her hands up in surrender, giving in way faster than Rantaro anticipated.
“I’ll help the oversized avocado top a demon twink from hell. Happy?”
The smile on Angie’s face tightened and Miu shrank into herself, almost shivering under the blonde’s icy glare.
“Okay, okay. I’ll be nice.”
Miraculously, Angie’s usual sunny disposition returned instantly, like it had never slipped in the first place.
“Angie thinks the problem is that you’re trying too hard to make it perfect.”
Rantaro went quiet.
Because, unfortunately, it sounded exactly like something Kokichi would say.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“Stop trying to write a song that explains Kokichi. Instead, Atua is telling Angie to tell you that you should write about what Kokichi feels like.”
Rantaro stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Write about how being around him changes things,” Angie continued, her head bowed in a quasi-prayer. “How he reflects parts of yourself back at you. How he makes you feel.”
For the first time all day, thinking about his unfinished project didn’t immediately fill him with dread, and so after a quick dinner with the girls and with a newfound pep in his step, Rantaro returned to the recording studio.
As he sat down and booted up his computer, Angie’s words kept replaying in his head.
Stop trying to write a song that explains Kokichi and write about what Kokichi feels like.
So, he stopped trying to make every lyric perfect.
He stopped trying to fit Kokichi into neat categories.
Instead, he wrote about late nights and missed lectures. About someone who could make him laugh when he was exhausted and drive him completely insane when he felt at the top of his game. About someone who acted like nothing mattered while quietly remembering every tiny detail about the people he deemed “interesting.”
Rantaro felt almost bionic as he kept working - recording vocal takes and stacking them to create harmonies, swapping the melodic progression of two sections, revising the lyrics over and over again.
And by the time he finally looked at the clock, hours had passed.
Rantaro stared blankly as his mouse cursor hovered above the file he had been working on all evening.
It was finished.
He had actually finished.
A small smile pulled at his face as he listened back through the track one final time, adjusting the tempo until it was just right.
It wasn’t perfect.
But maybe that was the point.
Kokichi wasn’t perfect either.
Rantaro leaned back in his chair, a sense of relief rushing through him as he let the last notes fade into his headphones.
Which was exactly why he didn’t hear the door open.
Or the footsteps behind him.
“Boo.”
Rantaro practically jumped out of his seat.
He spun around so quickly that his headphones clattered to the floor, though thankfully they were unharmed.
“Kokichi!”
The smaller boy grinned, looking far too pleased with himself.
“Wow. I didn’t know you were that easy to scare.”
“You snuck up on me.”
“Yeah, because you had those giant headphones on.”
Kokichi leaned closer, trying to get a good look at his screen.
“What are you making?”
Rantaro glanced at his monitor before looking back at him.
“A song.”
Kokichi’s expression shifted into interest.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
Rantaro hesitated.
Then he nodded.
“Yeah.”
Kokichi looked genuinely surprised for a second before his usual unfazed grin returned.
“Can I hear it?”
Rantaro considered saying yes.
He wanted to, just so Kokichi could understand the emotional damage he had inflicted on his psyche.
But then he thought about how much more special it would be if Kokichi heard it for the first time on his birthday.
“No.”
Kokichi scrunched up his face, clearly not used to hearing the word.
“No?”
“You can hear it at midnight.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s your birthday. In what…”
Rantaro trailed off, checking his watch.
“Two hours?”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
Rantaro sighed in relief. For once, Kokichi was being uncharacteristically easy-going. If he hadn’t been so wrapped up in agonising over his present, Rantaro might have noticed that something was on the other boy’s mind.
“There’s something I wanted to tell you about.”
“What?”
“You remember that guy from the bar a few months ago?”
Rantaro’s smile faded at the reminder.
“Yeah?”
“I saw him again.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. And guess what?”
Kokichi held up his phone.
“I got his number.”
It felt like someone had stuffed cotton buds in his ears as the conversation continued.
“He gave you his number?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
Kokichi smiled.
“We’re going on a date next week.”
For a solid thirty seconds, Rantaro didn’t know what to do.
He should have smiled, made a joke, or done something, anything to defuse the situation.
But suddenly the song on his computer felt stupid.
The whole evening felt stupid.
Because he had spent hours writing about someone who didn’t see him that way.
“Rantaro?”
Kokichi’s voice was quieter.
Concerned, for once.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Rantaro-”
Kokichi reached out, his expression losing its playful edge completely.
But Rantaro was already standing.
“I should go.”
“What?”
“I’ve got stuff to do.”
He didn’t wait for Kokichi to answer.
He grabbed his things and moved towards the door.
“Rantaro, wait-”
Kokichi reached out again.
For a second, Rantaro almost stopped.
Almost turned around.
But even if he did, he didn’t know what he would say.
So, he did the cowardly thing and left, fleeing to Miu and Angie’s pres.
“So let me get this straight,” Miu said, pouring herself another glass of wine. “You fled the scene like a pussy bitch.”
Rantaro nodded with a sigh.
“I panicked.”
“You’re an absolute fucking idiot.”
Rantaro sighed.
“Thanks, Miu.”
“No, seriously. I mean, I expected you to be emotionally constipated, but this is impressive even for you.”
Angie pursed her lips.
“Miu.”
“What? I’m helping.”
“You are insulting him.”
“He’s a twat who needs to be told- HEY.” Miu shrieked as Angie swatted her lightly on the head.
Rantaro ignored them.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I spent all day making this song for him and then he tells me he’s going on a date with someone else.”
Angie tilted her head.
“Did Kokichi say he wasn’t interested in you?”
“No.”
“Did he say he didn’t care about you?”
“No.”
“Did he say anything other than that he was going on a date?”
Rantaro hesitated.
“No.”
Angie smiled.
“Then Angie thinks you are assuming the worst.”
Rantaro opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Annoyingly, she had a point.
Miu pointed at him.
“Exactly. Look, I’m not saying Kokichi is easy to understand because he’s obviously a nutcase, but you can’t just let some random guy swoop in.”
“Miu.”
“What?”
“You make him sound like a prize to be.”
“He is.”
“He’s a person.”
Miu sighed dramatically.
“Jesus fucking Christ, fine he’s just a person you care deeply for.”
Rantaro looked away.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It literally is.”
“It’s really not.”
“Rantaro.”
Miu leaned forward.
“Your whole problem is that you building up Kokichi in your head instead of just talking to him. He’s just some incredibly annoying twink who needs to be dicked down.”
Rantaro went quiet, flushing slightly at the implications.
Angie took the more diplomatic route.
“Angie thinks what Miu is trying to say is that while Kokichi is special like all of Atua’s creatures-“
“Ang…”
“You need to talk to him about how you feel instead of expecting him to figure it out on his own.”
Miu affirmed her point.
“Exactly. Go for it.”
Rantaro stared at them, and huffed.
“You’re both terrible at giving advice.”
“I don’t see you suggesting anything Romeo,” Miu smirked knowingly.
He hated that she was right.
They kept talking and drinking – at one point they need joined in on a game of beer pong, which resulted in Rantaro becoming even drunker.
By the time he had the thought to check his phone for the time, it was already too late.
12:03 AM.
He stood up so quickly that both of them jumped.
“It’s Kokichi’s birthday already.”
Angie smiled.
“Perfect timing!”
“Guys what should I-“
“Go claim your bottom.”
And so he did.
Rantaro ran across campus.
The night air was slightly chilly, but he barely noticed thanks to all the alcohol he had consumed.
All he could think about was Kokichi.
What he wanted to say.
What he should have said hours ago.
He rounded the corner near the recording studio where he left Kokichi all those hours ago.
And stopped.
Because Kokichi was standing there waiting underneath a lamp post. The irises of his eyes danced in the light.
“Kokichi?”
The smaller boy smiled innocently, and for once he truly looked it.
“I listened to the song.”
All of the blood in Rantaro’s body ran cold.
“What?”
“When you left, I figured something was wrong.”
Kokichi looked down.
“So, I listened.”
“And?”
“And I loved it.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
Kokichi laughed brightly.
“It was weird.”
“Weird?”
“In a good way.”
He stepped closer.
“I’ve never been written about before, it was… interesting to learn how you perceive me. Most people dismiss me as a no good troublemaker.”
Rantaro stayed quiet.
“But you didn’t, you wrote about my complexities.”
A nervous laugh escaped Rantaro.
“I tried.”
“You succeeded.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Kokichi tilted his head.
“So…”
Rantaro looked at him.
“So?”
“Are you going to kiss me or what?”
A quiet, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips before he could stop it.
“You really are impossible.”
“I know.”
Rantaro was the one to step closer this time.
“Do you actually want me to?”
“Yes, or I wouldn’t be standing here, would I?”
Rantaro rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop smiling.
And when he finally leaned in, Kokichi met him halfway.
The kiss was nothing like the grand, dramatic moment Rantaro had imagined.
Kokichi’s lips were slightly chapped, and Rantaro was sure his weren’t exactly any better after spending the entire day hunched over a computer instead of upholding basic human necessities.
But somehow, none of that mattered.
Because when they kissed again, and then again, everything else seemed to fade away.
Their lips moved in a quiet rhythm that felt entirely their own - something they didn’t need to explain or define.
When they finally pulled away, Rantaro found himself staring at Kokichi with a smile he couldn’t contain – if anyone had come across them at this point, they would have probably tried to get Rantaro committed for mania, but he couldn’t muster the urge to care.
“Wow, that was…”
Instead of letting Rantaro say something embarrassingly sincere, Kokichi simply stuck his tongue out.
The law student was back to his usual self – exactly as Rantaro liked him.
“What?”
Kokichi shrugged.
“You were doing the serious face.”
“The serious face?”
“Yeah. The one where you start thinking about the meaning of life or whatever.”
Rantaro rolled his eyes and in turn a grin spread across Kokichi’s face.
“Anyway.”
He took a few steps backwards.
“The last one back to my flat has to cancel on Hajime next week.”
Rantaro blinked.
“What?”
But Kokichi was already moving.
Like he had been waiting for this opportunity.
“Kokichi!”
The purple-haired boy only laughed, breaking off into a sprint.
For a second, Rantaro just stood there.
Then he shook his head, smiling.
Of course, Kokichi would turn one of the most important moments of his life into a competition.
But somehow, it perfectly summed up their entire relationship and without wasting another second Rantaro started running after him.
He had a feeling he would be chasing after Kokichi Ouma for a long, long time.