Chapter Text
“Your posture needs fixing,” Matsuzaki barked your last name for the third time in almost thirty minutes. It was at this point you began to regret pursuing a liberal arts education, 9:27 on a Friday April morning, two years and one week into your Bachelor’s degree.
The weather outside was pleasant enough- the morning sun warmed your back and a light breeze occasionally billowed your hair. Birds sang and chittered in the ancient willow trees that dotted Tokyo University’s campus. You found it a perfect time and place to complete yet another mandatory health and wellness course. A perfect way to start your long weekends this semester. That is, when your tai chi instructor wasn’t ridiculing your “flow” every free minute he had.
Is this or is this not a beginner-friendly, yang-style class? You remarked inwardly. You did your best to keep your attitude to yourself, but couldn’t help your lip from tugging downwards when Matsuzaki delicately adjusted your knees and shoulders. Again. The new position he was attempting to guide you to- he kept shouting “Play the lute” directly into your ear- compromised your already-skewed balance to the point of nearly toppling you into the student just to your left. You felt yourself teetering on your right instep, praying to someone, something, somewhere that his watch would leave you long enough to regain your balance and flow into the next pose.
“Woah, no way, what kinda loot? What game are you gonna play?” The gruff voice of a tall, wide-framed man directly across from you miraculously answered your silent plea, though his questions made you feel like your brain cells were shriveling up. “You gonna share, little er… lady? Buddy? Uh…”
The correction you attempted to give- your last name- was completely drowned out by your instructor’s scolding. You took solace in the apparent class clown, Nendou Riki, being corrected twice as often as you already had been. A few of your classmates were in similarly poor shape, as you could see from the circular formation, but not the boy you nearly crashed into moments prior. What was his name again? Kaidou Shun, right? He assumed odd hand shapes and breathed way too audibly for your liking, but was surprisingly flexible. You weren’t sure how he managed a few decent positions with chains, belts, and straps hanging intricately from his loud ensemble.
“Don’t be discouraged,” he repeated your last name with a friendly smile. He could’ve left it at that, but instead placed a finger gun-like gesture over his left eye. You slowly turned your head towards him, focused on a mess of pale blue hair. “It takes many years to, er… m-master the art of uh, dark combat.” You figured that you didn’t do a good enough job of wiping the sour look from your face before addressing him, as his odd proclamation faltered rather quickly.
“Right, thanks,” you replied unassumingly. Your eyes flickered back to the model figure at the center of the group as she flowed into a new position. The fact that she had been chosen by popular vote as the class model told you that she had to be doing something right, but that was also par for the course for your program-mate, Teruhashi. You followed her movements carefully, letting your weight shift to your left foot before pivoting backwards.
“So… dark combat, huh? Even though this is yang-style tai chi?” You heard yourself question Kaidou while facing a pink-haired boy to your right. You were honestly curious about his choice of dramatics. Perhaps he was a bit like you, so easily enveloped in his own world of thoughts at times. Though you couldn’t see his face, it seemed that Kaidou understood the tone of your voice better than before.
“Haha, well, I mean… combat against the dark, of course!” His voice cracked as he attempted to explain himself. “And you know, within pure yang there is still yin!”
“I understand,” you reassured calmly while pivoting forward again. A tiny grin tugged on Kaidou’s lips when his figure returned to your view. You wanted to reciprocate the gesture, but instead your gaze softened minimally in his direction. The two of you casually drifted in and out of conversation as the flow continued. During the round of introductions, you managed to remember that Kaidou was in the same year as you and studied literature. You wondered if he put as much creativity into his work as he did his conversation choices.
Matsuzaki’s verbal corrections of your form eventually faded into silent physical redirection only as Nendou’s antics ramped up. Still, you weren’t sure what was worse: a strange man yelling in your ear or a strange man attempting to manipulate your joints with the pressure of a feather. The light contact- too light- made your stomach churn. You could feel your nerves frying whenever he approached you. You were grateful for Nendou, surprisingly, when he started an argument with another musclehead with fiery red hair. You had focused too little on Teruhashi and too much on the competitive exchange when you were meant to turn left to face away from the circle. Instead, your body slowly began to swivel right, and you found yourself mirroring a figure that was not the class model.
Actually, “mirror” might be a generous term. Had this flow been fast, the two of you would’ve kicked each other in the ankle and caused another commotion. The seconds you faced the student to your right dragged on like hours. His focus was set forward, inconveniently in your direction but not on you. It didn’t help that his face held as much expression as a brick wall. Your eyes brushed over his green-tinted shades, his crop of magenta hair, the matching pair of hair clips that poked out like antennae from his short locks, then towards a surprised huff that just escaped your line of sight. Your left-side periphery found Matsuzaki still preoccupied, so you took the opportunity to bend your knee towards your chest and speed into the next position, another heel kick.
Everyone else took their sweet time in catching up to you, leaving you wobbling on your right foot for far too long. You noticed that the boy you almost kicked hardly swayed in his own flow, it made you wonder if he was athletic, gifted, or simply lucky. By the time he assumed your current position, you found a way to balance while half-assing the heel kick, which allowed you enough concentration to turn your head a bit and open your mouth.
“Sorry about that, um…” You heard yourself whisper, though your eyes remained pointed ahead. What was his name again? All of the introductions from the start of class seemed to melt together, especially when the threat of Matsuzaki’s unfamiliar touch loomed somewhere out of sight.
‘Saiki.’ Your eyelids fluttered a bit in surprise. You were almost certain that your words were lost in the rustling of willow leaves. But that was Saiki... Saiki Kusuo. 'And don’t mention it.’ His voice sounded comfortably flat, unyielding to any impression he may have gathered of you.
Definitely wasn’t planning on it, you thought while lowering into an extended-leg squat. The lower your center of gravity got, the more confident you felt in the next pose. Just in time, too, since Matsuzaki was making his rounds from inside the circle. You froze in your current position, hoping your accuracy this time would be enough to keep him off your back for the rest of the semester. You could hardly be surprised when his shadow lingered near you for a few extra seconds, but instead he caught you off-guard with what he did next.
"Improving already. Nice work," your last name barely rolled off Matsuzaki's tongue as he clapped you on the shoulder. The impact made you flinch, hard enough to topple you from your flow and onto the cool grass. You landed softly on your back and nearly rolled onto your left side. The class froze at the soft thud your body made, but Saiki stretched towards the cloud-speckled sky without a hint of hesitation.
Especially not to him, you cast an unamused glance in your instructor's direction. Your attention was diverted enough that you missed Saiki's lip twitch at your inner commentary. How embarrassing.
☆✶∙∙∙𝟁∙∙∙✶☆
The upperclassmen dormitories quickly became a sanctuary for you over the past week. The hallways were clean and quiet, the shared kitchen was hardly ever used, and the only facility you had to share with your roommate was a bathroom.
Well, the latter was hardly true anymore. Since the bathroom connected your two singles, your roommate essentially used it as an open hallway between the two of you. Any free moment she had- and it seemed like she had a lot of them- she would invite herself in and crash into your bungee chair. She gossiped, asked odd questions (last night she interrupted your reading to ask which boy from an overpopulated idol group was your type), even just stood there and stared at you.
Even now, while trying to decompress from the embarrassment you made of yourself at your first tai chi class a few hours ago, she stood in the bathroom doorway, begging to paint your nails.
You didn’t mind, Aiura Mikoto had gradually wormed her way into the small group of people you’d consider "safe." The two of you made unlikely friends in your second semester at Tokyo U when you were partnered for a cultural research project. While gathering useful resources and compiling them into a powerpoint was easy enough for you, Mikoto struggled to understand the written instructions and almost immediately gave up. After some trial and error, you found that she best understood the material by listening to it rather than reading. She ended up carrying the presentation with high energy and snappy explanations, and you made an unstoppable pair since. You enjoyed letting her be the face of your projects during your core classes, and you still shared a few courses this semester, but you both had begun branching deeper into your chosen fields of study. Sociology and psychology shared some requirements, but not enough to partner up for each project. Being roommates was the most sustainable option for you to help her.
And of course, she helped you too.
“I’ll give you a sweet little manicure if you read me the syllabi from this week~!” She always tacked a ‘-poyo’ or ‘-rin’ or even ‘-tan’ to the end of your name when she tried to convince you to do something, but you wordlessly rolled off your bed, took the pile of packets, and set up a tray on the floor for her to use.
“You know you don’t have to do that,” you eventually reminded her while pulling your door open. The last thing you wanted was your bedroom to smell like a nail salon, but you did enjoy seeing her art sparkling on your nail beds from time to time.
“Aw, I know, but I like trying new styles on you! Plus, I know you’ve got something on your mind.” She poked the center of your forehead with a stilettoed nail and winked.
You were reluctant to admit that you had made a fool out of yourself in tai chi, but eventually gave into your friend's beckoning. Mikoto nodded sagely while you described all that transpired in the courtyard as if she foresaw it- she probably did, she was the campus esper, after all. Still, you couldn't ignore the way her eyes flickered up to yours when you mentioned Teruhashi, Kaidou, and Nendou. The spring breeze that filtered in through your screen window cooled the shameful burn on the back of your neck as you sulked behind a statistics syllabus.
“I even moved in the wrong direction and nearly kicked someone. And then after that I almost fell on them...”
“No way! Who?” Mikoto almost squirmed in anticipation while turning away from you. She reached for a bottle of clear topcoat to use on your right hand.
“Said his name was Saiki. I apologized but I think I upset him.”
Your roommate whipped back around, bedazzled crystal ball in hand. Oh boy. “Did you say Saiki?!” You thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head when she squealed his name.
“I- yeah, but don’t make a scene. The door’s open.” Your head tilted towards the sliver of empty hallway beyond your dorm’s threshold. Getting a noise complaint this early in the school year would certainly be a pain. Mikoto didn’t respond to your request, instead scrutinizing the empty center of a red sequin heart on her crystal ball. She held the orb to your face, then the open window, then the door.
“Wait, do you kn-”
“Hush!” Her free palm stopped a few centimeters in front of your face before grabbing a bottle of pink nail polish from your tray. She used the thick brush to place a glob between her thumb and pointer finger, then stretched the liquid between her fingers. You averted your eyes from her sensory nightmare-level antics to admire the complete nail art on your right hand.
You smiled at the abstract lines and flower-like shapes that popped against a nude background, simple yet colorful. It reminded you that you never had to explain yourself to Mikoto. She simply understood the non-existent relationship you had with gender. Perhaps it was her powers as a soothsayer that kept her from questioning you, but you were grateful nonetheless. Painting your nails wasn’t about looking pretty, it was simply an accessory to you, like a ring or a belt. The men’s button-up you thrifted with her yesterday wasn’t for looking masculine either, you just thought the houndstooth pattern would match well with an old pair of jeans.
That soft moment of gratitude was interrupted by Mikoto calling your name, and you braced yourself when she added a drawn out '-tan' to the end of it. Whatever request came afterwards, you knew it would be troublesome.
“Let’s get some ramen after I’m done, ‘kay?”
“What about your syllabi?”
A sly grin broke through her seemingly-innocent invitation as she reached for your right hand. “Oh, that can wait! We’ll read ‘em tomorrow. Tonight, we’re on a mission.”
You already knew that trying to talk her out of this would be a useless venture, but something also rang behind you. The bright and hollow noise caught your gaze for a moment as well. Go with her, it beckoned. It's important. You deflated for a moment before acquiescing. The night life around here was not your thing. "Give me a few minutes to change after you're done."
☆✶∙∙∙𝟁∙∙∙✶☆
The final lectures of the week were just wrapping up as you and Mikoto were getting ready to go out. Saiki did his best to pack his things and be one of the first out of the door, but Kaidou and Kuboyasu managed to catch up to him. They always had.
“No way, Shun. You know parties aren’t my scene anymore.”
“Come on! It’ll be fun. It’s just a little get-together!”
“At an off-campus student apartment? Yeah, we know how that tends to go. I’ll pass.”
Oh great, not even one week into the semester and they’re bickering on the way back to the dorms. Saiki was at least grateful that Kaidou lived in a separate building and Kuboyasu kept to himself in their semi-shared dorm space, but listening to this multiple times a week would quickly become grating, he was sure of it. It wasn’t until a few months ago that Kaidou actively sought out parties on the weekends simply to be included in the social scene that was unique to a college environment. But it didn’t take a psychic to figure out that it mainly involved drinking, dancing, and drama. Saiki’s social habits hadn’t changed much since high school: so long as his powers continued to grow and troublesome nuisances like these two followed him around, he’d prefer to spend his free time alone.
Though, he had to admit, hanging out with Kaidou and Kuboyasu wasn’t completely terrible when they weren’t at each other’s throats. Maybe it’s because he was getting better at filtering out the unnecessary bits.
“Whatever, fine. We don’t have to go. How about we get some ramen at that new shop down the street, then? It just opened on Monday.”
“It better not be as expensive as the last joint you found.”
Kaidou shook his head before pointing his phone screen in Kuboyasu’s direction. “No, says here that a customizable bowl is just 1,000 yen. Plus for the first month they have free dessert-”
'Let’s go, then.’ Kaidou and Kuboyasu stopped dead in their tracks when Saiki finally spoke up. Their heads swiveled towards him in unison.
“Really?”
‘I don’t know any other spot that offers dinner and dessert for 1,000 yen.’ He wasn’t lying, he couldn’t even find a deal like that in the university’s food courts. He didn’t hesitate to pass the pair, who were still frozen in shock. ‘What are you two waiting for?’
“Oh, nothing, I guess.”
“Yeah, let’s go get some ramen!”