𝘙𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥
Kougasaki is determined to upgrade Shiki from ultimate dumbass to common idiot, even if it means bribing the guy to get results. Un(fortunately) for him, Shiki is only interested in one type of prize
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
When Shiki had first been told that he was going to be forced into attending Rasetsu Academy, he probably should’ve realized his life was about to become far more complicated than simply avenging his father and killing psychotic Momotaro.
Unfortunately, the true horror waiting for him at the academy hadn’t been life-threatening missions or dangerous oni training.
It had been schoolwork.
Actual, real, miserable schoolwork.
At the moment, Shiki was sprawled dramatically across the dorm floor as though he had already accepted death, one arm thrown over his eyes while unfinished worksheets mocked him from the desk above. They hadn’t received any major oni training assignments that week, and because Mudano had apparently decided that tormenting teenagers was one of his many hidden hobbies, the class had instead been loaded down with normal academic homework.
Shiki hated every second of it.
He was convinced that if he stared at another math equation for even five more minutes, his brain would physically rupture inside his skull.
Now, technically, he could have just refused to do the work altogether. It wasn’t like Rasetsu would expel him over missing assignments, and while Mudano would absolutely lecture him into another dimension for slacking off, Shiki could usually survive those kinds of consequences.
The real issue was that his insufferable roommate didn’t seem to be struggling at all.
Shiki was over here fighting for his life, trying to answer the first three questions on their newest assignment, while Kougasaki sat across the room, casually flying through the worksheet as if it were another Tuesday.
Just thinking about losing to that jerk—even academically- made Shiki’s blood pressure spike.
By the time Shiki let out his eighth loud, dramatic sigh in under ten minutes, Kougasaki finally slammed his notebook shut with enough force to make Shiki flinch.
“Would you shut the hell up already?” Kougasaki snapped, glaring over at him from his desk. “I’m trying to work.”
Shiki groaned louder in response, somehow managing to melt even further into the floorboards like a dying man in his final moments.
Kougasaki stared at him for a second longer before pushing himself away from the desk with visible irritation. His socks dragged quietly across the floor as he walked over, stopping beside Shiki just long enough to kick him sharply in the ribs.
Shiki yelped loudly and immediately sat upright, clutching his side while glaring up at him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kougasaki shot back, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve been acting pathetic for the past hour.”
“And you're only acknowleging my suffering now?!” Shiki cried dramatically. “What kind of roommate are you? What if I was dying?!”
“If you died, maybe I’d finally get some peace and quiet,” Kougasaki replied flatly. “Now what do you want so you can stop making those annoying noises?”
Shiki opened his mouth to complain again before pausing.
Kougasaki stood over him impatiently, arms crossed, waiting for another dramatic outburst, but instead, Shiki just… stared.
The silence stretched long enough for Kougasaki’s expression to slowly tighten in discomfort.
“What?” he muttered.
Shiki didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, his gaze drifted absentmindedly across Kougasaki’s face, lingering on the familiar scars tracing across his skin before falling lower, toward the slight downturn of his mouth and the sharp line of his jaw. The late afternoon sunlight spilling through the dorm window caught faintly against his blond hair, softening the harsher edges of his expression in a way that made something warm curl unpleasantly low in Shiki’s stomach.
Kougasaki shifted slightly beneath the attention.
“…Why are you looking at me like that—”
“THAT’S IT!” Shiki yelled suddenly, shaking himself out of his daze.
“HUH?”
“TUTOR ME!”
Kougasaki stared at him blankly.
“…What?”
Before he could react, Shiki had already lunged forward dramatically and wrapped himself around Kougasaki’s leg like a parasite.
“Come onnnnn,” Shiki whined, practically squeezing the life out of him. “Help a buddy out here! I’m literally dying!”
“We are not 'buddy's',” Kougasaki snapped immediately, attempting to yank his leg free. “I have no reason to help you!”
Shiki only clung harder.
“You’re so mean! Is this how you treat someone in need?!”
“Someone like you? Yes.” Kougasaki tried dragging him across the floor toward the door, but Shiki somehow managed to deadweight himself so effectively that it became nearly impossible.
“Get OFF.”
“No!”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You’re smart! Use your powers for good!”
“My powers have nothing to do with math, dumbass!”
Shiki finally looked up at him with the most exaggerated pout Kougasaki had ever seen in his life, eyes wide and pitiful enough that any normal person might’ve caved immediately.
Unfortunately for Shiki, Kougasaki was not normal.
“No.”
With one final yank, Kougasaki managed to wrench his leg free before immediately turning away, clearly intent on escaping the conversation altogether.
“If you think you’d suck at teaching, you could’ve just said that.” Shiki muttered under his breath.
Kougasaki stopped dead in his tracks, and slowly— very slowly, turned around.
“What,” he asked dangerously, “did you just say?”
<><><>
Kougasaki had, once again, severely overestimated both himself and Shiki’s intellectual capabilities— or the lack thereof
No amount of patience in the world could fix whatever was fundamentally wrong with that idiot’s brain.
He had tried everything over the hours—explaining the problems slowly, rewording questions, physically pointing to formulas step-by-step while resisting the urge to slam his own head into the desk—and somehow Shiki still looked just as lost as he had in the beginning.
It was honestly impressive.
Kougasaki had never met anyone capable of staring directly at information while simultaneously failing to absorb any of it. Every explanation seemed to pass through Shiki’s skull untouched, entering one ear only to disappear immediately out the other before it could do any permanent damage.
And the worst part?
Shiki didn’t even seem embarrassed about it.
At first, he’d at least tried to focus. Kougasaki could give him credit for that much. The idiot had stared at the worksheet with genuine determination for nearly fifteen whole minutes before his attention started wandering toward literally anything else within eyesight.
The ceiling.
The window.
A bug crawling across the floor.
Kougasaki’s hands.
Kougasaki’s mouth.
Every time Jin glanced up while explaining something, Shiki would already be staring at him again with that same glazed-over expression that made his chest tighten in a way he really didn’t appreciate. Half the time, it barely even looked like Shiki was listening anymore, his eyes drifting lower and lower until Kougasaki became painfully aware of exactly where his attention had landed.
By the time they finally gave up for the afternoon, Kougasaki genuinely felt like he deserved an award for surviving the experience.
Which was exactly how he found himself sitting alone in the courtyard later that evening, trying to recover what remained of his rapidly deteriorating sanity while the cool evening breeze brushed through the academy grounds.
A handful of other students were scattered throughout the area, each busy with their own conversations or activities, and unfortunately for Kougasaki, he had accidentally chosen a bench far too close to Kiriyama and Sazanami.
A mistake he realized almost immediately.
“Rokurooo~” Sazanami practically cooed, leaning obnoxiously close to Kiriyama while holding up a pair of chopsticks. “If you don’t eat properly, how are you gonna grow up all big and strong?”
Kiriyama blinked innocently at her.
“Me? Big and strong?” he laughed softly. “I can’t even imagine it.”
“If you finish the bento I made for you,” Sazanami continued in a sing-song voice, “I’ll give you a reward~.”
Kiriyama’s eyes lit up immediately.
“Really? What kind?”
Sazanami leaned even closer. “Me, of course. We can—”
Kougasaki stood up instantly, letting out a tired sigh. He shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking back toward the dorms before Sazanami could finish whatever horrifying sentence she’d been about to say.
Still— despite how unbearable those two were, something about the interaction lingered in the back of Kougasaki’s mind while he walked.
A reward… maybe that wasn’t a terrible idea.
Shiki might’ve been hopeless academically, but he was also painfully easy to motivate whenever something personally interested him. The idiot practically functioned like an overexcited dog sometimes; wave the right thing in front of him and suddenly he’d throw himself into anything with reckless enthusiasm.
And considering the way Shiki had been looking at him lately—
Kougasaki’s ears burned faintly at the thought.
No. That was stupid.…Probably.
<><><>
Shiki immediately perked up from where he’d been half-dead across his desk the moment the dorm door opened.
Kougasaki stepped inside, looking noticeably different from earlier, the exhausted irritation he’d worn after their disastrous study session now replaced with something far more focused, almost unnervingly determined in a way that immediately caught Shiki’s attention.
“Welcome back, boss!” Shiki grinned dramatically, straightening up in his chair. “Are you finally back in tip-top shape?”
Kougasaki ignored the nickname entirely as he walked further into the room, dragging his chair across the floor before dropping it down directly beside Shiki’s desk. The distance between them was minimal now, close enough that their knees nearly brushed whenever either of them shifted wrong, and Shiki found himself suddenly very aware of the warmth radiating off Kougasaki’s body as he leaned over to inspect the messy notes scattered across the desk.
Kougasaki’s expression immediately twisted in visible disgust.
“…What the hell is this?”
“My notes,” Shiki answered proudly.
“More like chicken scratch.”
Shiki gasped. “You wound me.”
“You should be wounded after turning in handwriting this awful.”
Despite the insult, Kougasaki didn’t move away. Instead, he reached over toward his own desk, grabbing a loose sheet of paper before quickly scribbling several equations across it with sharp, irritated movements. Shiki watched him quietly during the process, eyes drifting far more toward Kougasaki himself than the actual homework.
A few loose strands of blond hair had fallen near his eyes again, and every so often Kougasaki would click his tongue softly while writing, brows furrowing with focus in a way that made Shiki’s stomach feel weirdly warm.
Eventually, Kougasaki shoved the paper directly in front of him.
“I think I have an idea.”
Shiki blinked before looking down at the worksheet.
Immediately, he felt a headache coming on.
The page was absolutely infested with numbers and letters, equations sprawling across the paper like some kind of personal attack against his happiness, and Shiki could practically feel his brain beginning to swell just from looking at it too long.
His expression must’ve visibly soured because Kougasaki snorted quietly beside him.
“If you can get at least one,” he said, leaning back slightly in his chair, “I’ll give you a prize.”
Shiki froze at that, turning slowly to look back at him.
The blond looked deeply irritated already, like he regretted this entire plan the moment it left his mouth, and honestly, Shiki wouldn’t have been surprised if this really was Kougasaki’s last desperate attempt at somehow dragging him across the finish line.
Still— The word prize echoed around in Shiki’s brain dangerously fast.
“What kind of prize?” he asked immediately.
Kougasaki rolled his eyes, reaching for the book resting on his desk before opening it with forced indifference.
“How about you focus on getting a single question right first?” he muttered. “Hell, if you somehow manage to improve after all this, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
Shiki must have hit the jackpot today. “…Anything?”
Kougasaki didn’t even look up from his book.
“Anything.”
He clearly thought Shiki would fail, and honestly, Shiki wasn’t exactly overflowing with confidence in himself either, but the mere concept of Kougasaki agreeing to do anything he asked in exchange for a few stupid math questions suddenly lit a dangerous spark inside his chest.
Suddenly, Shiki felt extremely motivated to become a genius.
<><><>
Kougasaki stared down at the worksheet in mild disbelief.
Somehow Shiki’s handwriting was actually readable this time.
Usually, his assignments looked like they’d been written during a natural disaster, but now the numbers and equations were surprisingly neat, each answer carefully worked through step by step, in a way that almost looked… earnest.
The problem was that nearly every single answer was still wrong.
Kougasaki felt a headache threatening to form behind his eyes as he skimmed through the page, watching Shiki’s logic derail itself in increasingly ridiculous ways with every equation. It was honestly impressive how someone could do all the right work and still get the wrong answer almost every time.
“…You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered under his breath.
For a brief moment, he genuinely considered giving up, but then his eyes landed on the final section of the worksheet.
Kougasaki blinked once before looking over them again just to make sure Shiki hadn’t somehow cheated.
“…Huh.”
Two out of ten definitely wasn’t impressive by any normal standard, but compared to Shiki’s usual average of zero correct, it was honestly a miracle.
Kougasaki slowly lifted his gaze toward the other boy.
Shiki was already staring at him expectantly from across the desk, blue eyes practically glowing with anticipation in a way that made something warm and irritating twist in Kougasaki’s chest.
Damn it.
“…Well,” Kougasaki sighed, leaning back slightly in his chair, “it’s still terrible. But you did get two right—"
“HELL YEAH!”
Shiki practically launched himself out of his chair, fists raised triumphantly, while he celebrated as if he had just won some life-changing championship instead of barely passing elementary-level math.
Kougasaki stared at him blankly.
“You’re acting like you solved world hunger.”
“I did solve world hunger!” Shiki shot back proudly. “My hunger for victory!”
Kougasaki clicked his tongue before rubbing his temple tiredly.
“Would you stop yelling already and tell me what you want? I’d like to sleep before sunrise.”
The excitement in Shiki's expression shifted almost immediately into something more focused, and Kougasaki felt his stomach tighten slightly as Shiki slowly started walking toward him.
Close enough that Kougasaki had to tilt his head slightly upward to maintain eye contact.
“Anything, right?” Shiki asked quietly.
Kougasaki narrowed his eyes immediately.
“Within reason.” The warning came automatically, though honestly, it did very little to calm the growing sense of danger creeping up his spine.
Because Shiki looked way too pleased with himself right now. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then slowly, Shiki lifted his hands toward Kougasaki’s face.
Jin froze instantly.
His breath caught before he could stop it as Shiki’s fingers brushed carefully against the edges of his mask, hesitation flickering briefly across Shiki’s features when Kougasaki went completely still beneath his touch.
But when no protest came, Shiki continued.
The mask slipped away slowly reverently, revealing Kougasaki’s face inch by inch until the cool air brushed fully against skin usually hidden from everyone else. Shiki took his time setting the mask down carefully on the desk beside them before turning back toward him.
Alarm bells immediately started screaming in Jin’s head, but he still couldnt bring himself to pull away when Shiki leaned down to close the gap between them.
The kiss was gentle, cautious even. Shiki’s lips were a little rough, slightly chapped in a way that really shouldn’t have felt as nice as it did, but Kougasaki found himself melting into the warmth anyway, eyes slipping shut almost instinctively as the tension in his shoulders slowly loosened.
It lasted only a few seconds and he thought that was the end of it, but then Shiki kissed him again, longer this time.
Lingering just enough to make Kougasaki’s pulse stumble unevenly in his chest.
And when Shiki started leaning in for a third—
Kougasaki finally stopped him.
His hand pressed lightly against Shiki’s shoulder while he looked up at him with flushed cheeks and visibly uneven breathing, trying very hard to ignore the way Shiki’s half-lidded eyes immediately dropped toward his mouth again, as if he was already prepared to continue.
Unfortunately for Shiki, Kougasaki still had at least some self-control left. Immediately, he stood up from the chair and took a step backward to create distance between them before he completely forgot how to think.
“What—”
“You only got two questions right,” Kougasaki interrupted quickly, looking away before Shiki could fully process how red his face had gotten.
A loud groan of protest immediately filled the room.
“That’s not fair!”
“It’s absolutely fair.”
“You said anything!”
“That doesn't mean you can kiss me for as long as you want! It's damn near midnight— I'm tired!” Kougasaki shot back, finally risking a glance toward him again. “If you want more than that, then get all your answers right next time.”
He licked his lips absentmindedly after speaking, a nervous habit more than anything else.
The look that crossed Shiki’s face afterward made heat crawl violently up Kougasaki’s neck.
Suddenly, Shiki was staring at him like a starving man looking at his next meal.
“Oh, trust me, Kougasaki.” Shiki said slowly, voice dropping lower in a way that made Kougasaki’s stomach flip unexpectedly,
“Me passing the next test should be the least of your worries.”