Lovely silence // TERUHASHI X SAIKI

Love 🤍

—A/N—

requested by my dear friend sav 💝

———

The 17th of August, that's when Saiki Kusuo returned from his birthday trip to London. It too was the day that the boy had started acting amiss. He was known for being a man of few words, typically none if he could get away with it, but this was.. new. This was different, and Teruhashi Kokomi couldn't quite place why.

She had known, of course, that the source of this oddly affected Kusuo was probably his older brother Kusuke. Kokomi didn't exactly like Kusuke either, but she knew that Kusuo's resentments ran far deeper. She wasn't nearly aware of the extent, merely chalking it up to sibling rivalry. Lord knows that she and her brother Makoto have faught their fair share and she, too, harbors a distaste for her sibling.

Never mind all of that, the relevancy of those seemingly pointless facts was that, out of all his friends, Kokomi was the one with the most understanding of his current emotional state. She put her knowledge to no waste either, taking a keen eye to Kusuo's odd behavior as of late. Their friends did care for Kusuo, make no mistake, but they seemed too excited to drag the boy into their excited chattering to notice his strange mannerisms. They, save for Kokomi, didn't notice how his answers seemed rather.. repetitive. They didn't notice how he seemed more jumpy than usual, how he had the complexion of someone who had not slept in days, how he seemed even more distant than usual. All of this fell to the wayside to most, but not to Teruhashi Kokomi.

Her entire life she had spent in an effort to be the perfect girl, and as such she had become rather well versed in body language, as well as observing. Whenever she had an opportunity, she was watching. Nothing in particular, nor no one, rather taking in as much as she could. What she had been observing lately was that Kusuo was, without a doubt, on edge. He seemed ready to turn tail and run at the first sign of.. anything. 'What is he waiting for?' She wonders, but she knows the answer. He's waiting for something to go wrong, be it his brother or his friends inflicting it; he is waiting for someone or something to go wrong. It's a feeling she's experienced many a time in her life, constantly on edge due to how far some of her so-called fans are willing to go.

'But why Kusuo?' She wondered, for good reason too. He always seemed so cool and collected, that's something she had admired about him greatly; that he was constantly aware and conscious of his surroundings; so why the sudden change? What did Kusuke do to him? Do sibling pranks really go so far as to rattle even the ever-so-nonchalant Kusuo?

More importantly, and much more on the forefront of her mind, is he okay?

Unbeknownst to her, the very boy she was fretting over was a psychic, and a mind reading one at that. He was growing frustrated that she could see straight through his act, briefly considering telling her what happened just to shut her up, but almost immediately the notion was dismissed. He didn't think it would do him any good to talk about the past, especially not something she wouldn't even understand. Especially not something that may draw in any extra attention.

The current circumstances were that Kokomi, Riki, and Shun were all crowding around Kusuo's desk talking to him. The school day had just ended, meaning that the usual nuisances Kusuo considered his "friends" were going to invite him to all manners of odd activities. Out of the three there was only one who was, even to the all-powerful psychic, impossible to refuse. That was Kokomi. Rejecting an invite from the girl would be social suicide, so when she invited him to go spend the night at her house he simply had to comply.

After miraculously ditching the other two teens, Kusuo found himself sitting on the floor of the Teruhashi Kokomi's room. Any other person would kill to be in his position, but he would kill to be out of it. Kokomi, who had excused herself to the restroom to collect her thoughts, was internally panicking.